


Rocks at your window, fog at your doorstep

by Hopeful_Foolx



Series: OTP absolute cinnamon rolls [3]
Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Cuddling, Delirium, Elnor needs a hug, Fever, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hugh needs a hug, Hurt/Comfort, Nanobots, One day I'll fix these tags my god, Seizures, Sickfic, Sleep Deprivation, Whump, these boys have issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23532634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeful_Foolx/pseuds/Hopeful_Foolx
Summary: Nightmares make it hard to sleep sometimes. Luckily, Hugh finds a way to fix that - not-sleeping. When the consequences catch up to him, it's up to Elnor and Emil to fix him.
Relationships: Elnor & Hugh | Third of Five, Elnor/Hugh | Third of Five
Series: OTP absolute cinnamon rolls [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667231
Comments: 38
Kudos: 61





	1. Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> This is... I am way to excited about posting this. I don't even know when I started writing this, and it was supposed to be a lot shorter. And now it's long and... I'm internally keysmashing. Oh my god. Please... Enjoy?

Hugh had once told Elnor that he doesn’t feel his implants. That the occasional headache comes from lack of sleep or holding himself up too stiff. That while yes, his vision is different though to his synthetic eye, he doesn’t feel it being there more than his organic one.

He lied. 

In reality he feels all of them. It’s subtle, like feeling to just have have hair, feeling skin itching but not bad enough to scratch. He feels the scar sometimes and he can’t lay in bed facing the wall since he then lies on his left side, on his implants, and he feels them pressing against the bone they are merged with. The pressure of his robotic eye even, he feels all of it. But they don’t hurt, and that’s the reason he lied to Elnor. The same question had been brought to him many times before, but differently, only asked if they hurt. If he is in constant pain, and no, he isn’t. Normally, at least. Normally they don’t hurt, normally, they are just there and sometimes, he feels them. He registers them more, every day, everyday looking into anything that could mirror his appearance made him register them, but differently that anyone - except for maybe Seven of Nine - could comprehend. He had seen himself as a drone, and even after years, it is a comfort, sometimes, to see his face. And to feel the implants only on certain parts, his face, his wrist, his fingers, and to know they are there, but won’t control him anymore. He can think about raising his hand and do it, nobody else makes the commands for him. It’s only him in his head, and it’s only him feeling the remnants of what once was so much more. He feels the scar running down his face and it hurts sometimes, but maybe this is not even pain. But when he smiles too much he feels it, and it’s only now that he found out. And still, he doesn’t have to. Nobody forces him to smile or laugh, or to understand a joke, sometimes he doesn’t understand a joke and that is fine. A certain piece of comfort lies in not understanding. No chip controls him to find an answer, he just asks. And he doesn’t know if whoever answers him tells the truth, and that bothers him, and he gets sceptical, and there is no implant telling him to look for an answer. Confusion is a feeling, and Borg don’t have feelings. As much as he sometimes still has trouble with them, it’s a comfort that they are there. A comfort like the wiggling of the fingers of his right hand when he is nervous, just to do it, even subconsciously the remnants of technology listen to him, not the other way around. So yes, he feels them. But it’s his own small secret, something he wants nobody to know. 

And normally, they don’t hurt. Sometimes they do. A sharp bolt of pain in his wrist, or through his head. The feeling of lead when he did not sleep enough or well enough - not not efficient enough, no, if he’s slept badly, dreamed too much. It’s not about effectiveness anymore, except it is, when they have to track anyone or anything down, keep up with synths or a whole city of them. The only upside of all of it is, that he is exhausted enough to sleep through the night without dreaming, when it is even night. Sometimes he crashes around the day, getting a few hours of sleep, always slightly worried someone would find out and ask, but thankfully, it had yet to happen. It isn’t that he wouldn’t want to sleep and rest - but sleeping at day means he is far more tired and also, Soji is his friend. And the word friend still has a special place in all his thoughts. She is his friend, and he is doing all of this for his friend. A tiny part of him wonders if he will ever stop - ever not do something for his friends, for Picard and Soji and Geordi and… Is friendship supposed to be like this? But every single time he has that thought he shoves it away and does something else, busies himself with calculations and skeletons of plans to outrun the Romulans. They can’t trick them forever, right now they are just playing on time. And time is an interesting topic these days, all things considered. They need more time, every second they gain is important. There is no time to sleep. 

There is, of course. There is time to sleep, and there is time to rest, and deep within he knows it - but he works on his calculations anyway, tries to get them the time they need to disappear long enough that they are out of range, long enough to get to safety. It’s what counts. It doesn’t matter that he is working most of the time, he did that on the cube and nobody was bothered, and it’s the same here. He has to find a way. If he fails, Narissa is going to kill these people too, and as much as he tries to not get too close to them, it’s already too late. Far too late. The moment he realized that Picard was here, Soji, and that Elnor saved his life he had made the decision. He had already known it was doomed. He would find a way to shield them from the romulans. He would find a way to get Soji to her planet. He would find a way to get her  _ home. _ To her  _ family. _ There is no turning back now. And so he stays up and runs simulations until his thoughts are back to numbers and circles, because it works. Since he proposed the idea he has been working on it nearly without a break - they already wasted too much time,  _ he _ already wasted too much time he needed to recover, they all took to plan, to map out their options, when in the end, one night of calculating, reading, researching and throwing around theoretical astrophysics, was all it took to have one. It’s only a matter of time until the Romulans find them again. He got that much from the retold situation about Dr. Jurati. The lock on them is gone for now, but he believes Soji when she told them, that the spy, Narek, wouldn’t need much time to either find them again, or even arrive on the planet before them. 

_ It’s her family _

Even the thought of how she could lose them bites in his heart, punches long and sharp teeth into it and bleeds cold poison into his chest. And no. He can’t think rationally, he’s far beyond that point. 

It’s two days into using all available time into the plan, practically living in front of screens and PADDs that he feels it the first time. It’s a crawling deep pain as if a needle has slowly been inserted into his eye, all the way through to the depths of his brain, and then suddenly yanked out again causing a roaring in his ears that drowns out the soft computer noises. He has to brace himself against the terminal he is standing in front of to keep standing upright, closing his eyes and breathing slowly, at least tries. The feeling passes after a few moments, but he keeps two of his fingers just above the implant. It feels warm, warmer than it should be, but he pays no mind to it, even when he does sit down, though. Headaches are to be expected when he is spending all of the time he is not sleeping in front of screens or running simulations. He can rest when they are in orbit of Milos III - where they can find the parts he and Soji proposed they should get as improvement for the engines and shields. It’s two days until then. Deadlines are good, he can divide works according to deadlines. Soji has her own set of work, but he was mindful of how she is adapting to the others, especially regarding her training with Elnor. It’s unusual, since she is more than capable in defending herself and Elnor is… a good teacher, but gets very excited about it, but he considers it good that she is making friends. He cares for her. He cares for all of them and he shouldn’t care about so many people! Maybe it’s not the screens causing his headache after all, but that he can’t stop thinking about the  _ people  _ he  _ cares _ about.  _ Hopeful Fool? maybe. But a fool every single time all over again. _

* * *

After they beamed aboard from Nepenthe, when Hugh was still unconscious in sickbay, Picard had asked Elnor to keep an eye on him. There was no bound sword involved, no spoken promise. He only promised it to Hugh and himself, and fulfilled it by looking after him while he recovered. Then, after that, because it was technically still recovery, he continued to keep an eye on him. Both eyes, actually. He counted the nightmares as part of recovery, and it was a good way to excuse that he didn’t want to leave him alone. He had failed on the Artifact-cube, and he wouldn’t fail again. But now, later, he can’t pretend anymore. Honesty and being at peace with his thoughts also means that he found out that he was indeed pretending days ago. Still, he keeps doing it. It’s no longer looking out because Picard said so, it’s so much more than that. He looks out because he wants to, because he cares about Hugh, and it’s not that he hasn’t cared before, just never this way. It’s the nightmares they both have, but it’s also the small things they both notice. He has cared before, and he has been cared for and about before, but never this way, and he didn’t expect to be cared for in this way. Hugh notices things too, but his gestures are ghost like, most times. He may be the only one on board who has not even the slightest problem with Elnors way of Absolute Candor. He gets up at the same time as Elnor, but even though he could be finished much faster, they always have breakfast together. He sometimes waits until Elnor has finished meditating until he sleeps. 

And Elnor? He still notices when Hugh keeps massaging the small spot where the knife hit him, even if it should be healed by now, and takes his hand away without a comment or a look or a word between them. Elnor knows how much Hugh enjoys being on a planet, even if their visits were limited to only one until now, he saw him stand in the sun and just breathe for a moment. For Elnor, who has stayed on a planet for most of his life, the spaceship sometimes seen like a too small tin can, and he feels uneasy, unsettled. These are the moments Hugh finds any topic far away from it. 

They’ve known each other for two weeks now, and it feels like a lifetime. 

Elnor noticed how Hugh hasn’t slept properly in the last week, and more than once he looked for him and found him passed out in their quarters at daytime. It worries him, but he keeps it to himself until he has enough information. He planned on talking to Picard, because who else should he talk to about it. If someone knows Hugh it should be Soji or Picard, but then he had thought about it and realized that Picard didn’t seem to know Hugh good enough to notice changes in his behavior. Soji had been his next thought, but he is still careful. Not because of what she seems to be - he had been raised to have no bias and since she is a decent person and seems generally interested in his culture, he even offered her to show her some of the not-so-secret secrets in fighting like a Quawt Milat. He is careful because Hugh told him that he was concerned about what happened on the cube, the Artifact, whatever it was called now. But before he talks to her, he wants to make sure he is not wrong. And observes even closer. Of course he had asked Hugh about it, but the ‘I’m fine, don’t worry about me, Elnor’ accompanied by a tired smile was too fast said as to be an answer that he would file not under ‘pretending’. Of all people, though he in the next moment wonders why he is surprised, it’s Raffi who asks him if he knows about something wrong with Hugh. Since nobody even sees him away from the unused quarters he and Soji transformed into their think-tank one night. He tells him he doesn’t know, but apart from it he watches even more closely now. Hugh doesn’t react well to too many questions, and asking him intrudes too much of the thoughts he keeps to himself. But then Raffi notices it too, and Elnor starts to worry even more when Hugh looks as pale as the bedsheets in the morning, and the alarm in their room startles him. It goes off at the same time every morning, while Elnor knows he comes to their room only a small amount of time before. He wants to find anything about it positive, but even that he doesn’t seem to have nightmares only leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.

* * *

Since time has always been a reliable constant, losing it feels like losing his grip on reality. He doesn’t remember when he woke up, when he last slept, at what point the pain behind his left eye became the constant fall of a hammer in his head, or how often he has to blink a fine white sheen away from his field of vision. It’s fine, he convinces himself, it’s all fine because it’s just a headache and really, if would probably be better if Rios could keep his ship at a reasonable temperature. Then he thinks back to how he was able to regulate his core temperature once, and suddenly, that he can’t, doesn’t feel so bad anymore. 

He’s fine. He really is. If he stops now, he won’t finish. They are nearly there, and he needs to do this, he needs to do something because if he doesn’t, it will haunt him, and the nightmares already do that. 

It’s a steady flow of information, the interface around him, he keeps track of the moving dots faster than an organic being could, sees exactly what lets the simulation fail, and what made it succeed, by which chance and why, raides out the weak spots in every piece of machinery, in shield deflectors and engine-turbines, calculates the pressure that the hull has to withstand and for how long, and how to stretch that. Hugh keeps track of the numbers and percentages, all in his head and with a few notes, but they are distracting, having to look up what he just calculated is a distraction, slows him down, interrupts what is a flow of moving fingers, disturbs a melody of thoughts. When he is lost in the blue lines that blur together into a single world around him, he feels weirdly at home. Everything is so easy, since it’s all logical, and what is not stays out of his bubble. 

Which is also why it takes him far too long to realize that he is being watched, and it disrupts his third check of the hull integrity enough that he nearly loses the most important piece of information; their percentage of success. He diverts a small part of his attention away, not an easy task since he successfully ignored the pounding headache and the shaky feeling in his legs until now, and they come back with full force. A moment later he needs his full attention to grab onto the next solid piece of furniture to hold himself upright, shoving whatever it is aside in the process. He hears something fall, clatter to the ground, bouncing off the floor one time, and every noise it makes is the fall of a hammer inside his brain. The headrush hits him far too fast, he closes his eyes to stop the world from moving, and still, there seems to be pressure from all around him, like hands squeezing his head, pressing down just above his eye with a thumb. For a terrifying long moment the time seems to stop and he is sure he’s falling, buzzing fills his ears and he groans, gripping the table tighter. It’s worse than the last time, much worse, and the moment he realizes he won’t be able to go on like that for much longer is the same one he feels the pressure lessen. Maybe he should be worried? Hopefully he just needs to sleep for a few hours. He didn’t realize it getting so bad, or maybe he just ignored it. Worst of all, he recovers too late to hide it from Elnor, who must have darted closer, since Hugh only saw him out of the corner of his eye in the first place, and he has both hands outstretched and close now. Hugh waves it off with his own. He slowly inches away from the table. His PADDs are on the floor. Great. And Elnor looks at him far too worried. Even more perfect. 

“It’s fine, you just startled me.” It’s not completely lied. “What can I do for you?” There must be something in his artificial eye, it hurts even more than his head and makes Elnor in front of him foggy. He tries to wipe it clean with his sleeve, but rubbing only makes it worse.

“It’s not fine. I came to tell you that we are approaching the planet, but I don’t want to do that now.” Hugh lowers his hand and flinches a moment later when Elnor talks way too loud. “You don’t look good!” Hugh sighs and tries to look at him with as much strength as he can summon.

“Well, thank you?” But the sarcasm is forced and he feels too tired to keep up the facade, still he tries. “I looked at the screens for too long. Do you know the saying? Getting square eyes from staring at them?” 

“No? Is that something that actually happens?” His try at humor fails as Elnor only comes and, even worse, looks closer. “Your eyes are not square. But red. And you are pale. I know you haven’t been sleeping well” Hugh backs away a few steps to pick up the fallen PADDs from the floor. It’s to get away, to make sure Elnor, one of the most observant people Hugh ever met, can’t look closer. It’s also to prove that he is fine to both of them, that he bends down, away from Elnor-

And finds himself half-sitting, half slumped against the table the next. There is a rush of motion next to him and he knows it’s just Elnor, still, he flinches away. Landing on his hands sends a delayed shockwave trough his spine to the back of his head, it arrives in his head and he squeezes his eyes closed once again, leaning his back against the leg of the table, the cool metal feels far too good. The pain stays and holds his head with one hand, bracing himself against the floor with the other, breathing slow and steady, heavy breaths onto his chest. The dizziness hurts in his whole body, and it takes nearly a minute until he realizes that Elnor is talking to him. To his credit, he doesn’t touch him, he hovers close as Hugh cracks one eye open, at least trying to pull himself together.

“...so you are clearly  _ not _ fine, Hugh, please, talk to me!” Elnor looks at him with a so desperate expression that it hurts his heart. It’s unfair and he knows it, but he can’t keep himself from waving it off yet again. 

“I am… just tired.” It’s not that he wants to lie. He knows that Elnor worries and he knows it’s far too late to prevent that. He knows he can’t make him stop, and the good soul he is, he has probably already talked to the others. But he can’t admit it. He can’t just say it, that he is not fine, that he can’t sleep, that he sees and hears and feels the events on the Artifact too deep. He can’t just tell him that he is terrified of being alone, but being terrified is at least a feeling he knows he has. He can’t just tell Elnor that he caught himself craving the traitorous emptiness of not-feeling. He wants to scream it out and cry his eyes out, cut the throat of whatever little voice is in his head reminding him that he, a long time ago, didn’t have to deal with these feelings, any feeling at all. That he could turn it off and not worry, not hear the silent screams and the worry and the black void where he planted the seeds of hope in beings, that deserved to be people, and who were people, and died being called things as the last thing they heard. 

“Just tired.” He repeats softly after a moment. His eyes hurt and he suddenly wishes that anyone else would be here. With anybody else he could pretend, he could lie and get up, but not with Elnor. He trusts too easily, he always has, and still he opened up to the young man in a way he never allowed himself to. Maybe he was too weak all along. His thoughts stumble over that word, and he craves to be weak for one time, tell him everything and scream and shout until he leaves, because this is what people he cares about in any way always do, they leave. He tried to stop it before, but now, here, with Elnor, he vowed to make sure that Elnor wouldn't leave. He would not screw this friendship up over a headache and a small existential crisis. He contains himself so Elnor stays. Nobody ever did. Everything is always temporal, people are temporal. They come and go. They arrive like a thunderstorm and leave him in shards that just break him even more. And every single time he calls himself a fool for falling for it again. He knows it will be like this this time too. But as long as they are on board? As long as he can, he won’t make Elnor leave. As long as he can, he will contain all his feelings, all his doubts, bottle them up and screw the lid tight, so he stays for as long as possible. So he says nothing more. Tired is a good excuse, or this is what his mind tells him at the moment. He is tired. Nothing more. 

“I know, and I know that you don’t sleep. But you have to tell me what is wrong. I can’t help you like this.” He extends a hand but stops in the middle of the motion, “And I won’t look away, no matter how much you seem to want me to” He is even closer now and Hugh has trouble following him with his eyes, he moves too fast for him and he has the feeling like he missed it. The pounding in his head intensifies and the sick feeling returns as he tries to get up from the floor, but he quickly puts the hand back on the floor. Not safe. Bad sign. Not working. He needs a strategy, adapt to- He swallows down the thoughts, concentrates on Elnor, who is still kneeling next to him, anxiously hovering close.

“Elnor it’s… it’s okay, I just… I have to keep busy. If I’m doing this I can at least sleep at all. Just…” He grips the tabletop again, one hand reaching upwards to pull himself up. His legs feel like lead, but at the same time, they shake too much for it. He doesn’t even try to hide it anymore. The lies slip out as easily as the truth, like something he can’t really control. He feels too leaden to stand, he feels too tired to move. He just wants the hammer in his head to stop. 

“See, I just needed a break” He says anyway.

“You need to rest. I can stay with you if you need that, but please, Hugh. I’ll even take over these… calculations. Anything. The only thing I won’t do is letting you continue!” The concern is if possible even more obvious now, partly because Elnor, who has a knack for art and stories but not for maths or let alone theoretical astrophysics, offers to help, when even talking about makes him sleepy, partly because he gets louder and Hugh grips the metal table tight enough his fingers begin to slip from it.

“I…” He stops himself from protesting before he says it out loud. He can’t go on like this. Not with Elnor sitting next to him, watching his every move, not knowing that he, by choice now, made him worry. “Okay.” Maybe he should. Just for a few hours, just until the pain lessens to a reasonable level. Just for a short time. 

“Okay, I’ll… go lie down.” Elnor puts a hand on his arm but Hugh can’t look up to meet his eyes, since the lights are too bright and just hurt even more, so he just moves it out of his reach, and he seems to understand. Or, he understands what he thinks is happening, not that Hugh long for it, yearns for the touch, knowing he would melt into it and open up within a moment. But he has to keep himself together. He doesn’t know what he should do if Elnor leaves. The possibility feels like the end of the world.

“Shall I accompany you?”  _ Yes, please, please, I can’t be alone, I don’t want to be alone please don’t leave _

“No, it’s okay. Privacy and… things. I’ll be fine.” He says instead. 

The whole way out of the workshop he feels Elnors worried glances following him, and it’s probably the small amount of adrenaline it creates that gets him to the other side of the hall and to their quarters. 

He doesn’t bother to ask for light, the dark is a welcomed change to the light everywhere else. He moves on instinct, knowing where the bed is, knowing where to grab for clothes that are not the neatly folded pyjamas under his pillow, and where to put the worn ones. It’s an automatic motion and he could do this while sleeping - which is an interesting thought, he thinks on thinking. It’s just a short time. Just an hour, maybe two, then he can show Elnor that he is fine, no cause for concern, just tired. He needs a break, only a break.. Just until his headache gets better, for at least a little bit. To make sure Elnor doesn’t worry. Nothing more. He feels for the smooth covers and the pillow is cool, he manages to flop down onto it, before he is asleep a moment later. 

* * *

Elnor regrets not taking Hugh to their quarters. He should have, he thinks, because now Hugh is alone and even if he had looked dead on his feet, what if he isn’t sleeping? If he can’t? What if Elnor read the signs wrong and Hugh actually wanted him to come? What if what if what if… 

He wants to check on him, wants to make sure everything is okay. Maybe he was right to worry and Hugh is sick? Nobody knows if he wasn’t exposed to… something while they were on the ship. Or it’s an xB thing. What if he can’t be away from the cube for too long?! There are a million possibilities, and he is nearly at the door that he stops and takes a breath. There is an even higher chance that everything is alright. If Hugh is sleeping and he wakes him up now, he would accomplish the exact opposite of what he wanted. No, it is far better to let him sleep. 

So Elnor tries his best to shove the bad feeling away, meets the others, busies himself as best as he can, which works to some degree. It is later, when he shows Soji, who is a fast and exact lerner, tricks and steps with a wooden stick, that Hugh is even the topic again. 

“I sent him to sleep earlier, he stays awake until late a lot, running calculations and simulations. I don’t understand it, but he does.” Soji swings the stick over her head and behind her back elegantly, but he still tells her to do it again. It looks too practiced and too precise. He can see the difference between copying and learning. She does both, the first more by accident, but wants the latter. 

“I tried to help him, you know? I could do it faster, but he has some experience I lack, we would be a great team. He doesn’t-” she ducks away from his attack near her left ear, takes two measured steps backwards and swings the wooden pole in her hands before she finishes. “...let me in. It’s weird, like something is missing, since we arrived here. I don’t want to say he was a happy person, but-” this time it’s Elnor who ducks away, not surprised by her attack of course, but watching her steps for mistakes. 

“But he seems worried now.” He finishes for her. “I have noticed too, and I have the feeling, he lost too much.” 

“What do you mean? The xBs?” She stops moving and tightens the band holding her hair. 

“Picard has told me the whole story. I know what it’s like to lose a family - I know what it is like to be raised among strangers. But he was alone for most of it. The xBs gave him a sense of purpose, and now he is forced to stay away. He’ll take time to adapt. The spy killed his family in front of his eyes. We are his friends, and in that way the closest to him.” 

  
“He’s scared? Scared of losing us too?” 

“I believe so.”

“But he is doing all he can, more than anybody could. It was his idea to use the tunnel, and we keep working on it. If anyone finds us, follows us, it’s not going to be his fault by any means! ” 

“That may be true, but feelings, especially guilt won’t let him think rationally. Thoughts like waves in an ocean, they always threaten to pull you down, and guilt, guilt is the worst of them all. Like a stone in your stomach, it keeps you down on the ground more than gravity, until you don’t even know how to think away from it. It consumes everything.” He thought about it way too much, he realizes the moment he says it. Guilt. He’s not feeling guilty, but everybody on this ship is, everybody for a different reason, and he had felt the need to understand. He knows why Doctor Jurati is, he knows why Picard is, he told him the story about Data, and then about Soji’s sister. He knows that the Captain feels guilty for unknown reasons too, as well as Raffi. He wanted to understand why, how, only to realize that he couldn’t fully comprehend it. 

He looks back at Soji who puts her stick down and just nods. She doesn’t answer him otherwise, but she doesn’t need to, to tell him that she feels guilty too.

It’s over an hour later and everyone besides Raffi seems to have left to the planets city. Since Hugh is sleeping and Picard and Soji both agreed with Elnor to let him do so, they left him here. It bothers him, because he should be with his charge. They are only acquiring technical parts and he’s been told it’s not too special or supposed to draw attention, but if he has learned one thing about this crew it is that nothing ever goes smooth with Picard. He is by himself, and he is honest to himself, that he hates it. Not only does it give him time to think too much, but also only the bright lights on the ship keep the memories from being alone on the cube at bay. 

How cold he’d been. 

How lost he had felt. 

How utterly alone in the world, and it was not even on a world - it was in the middle of space. That he is at least close to a planet helps, somehow, and that he is not alone. He talks to the hospitality hologram for half an hour just to maybe ease his anxiety. He told Soji how guilt feels to him, but concern is even worse. Where guilt weightens him down, worrying makes him too light, too anxious, jumpy and distracted. The distraction is the worst. He cares about all of the crew, but differently about Hugh, and he  _ wants to care _ . All while Hugh doesn’t seem comfortable with letting him.

He wants to be there. And maybe he can’t do anything, but he could at least have a look. It’s been hours by now, and he feels like he’s earned the right to make sure everything is okay. To make sure he didn’t miss anything. And as a warrior, he can be as silent as deadly, if he doesn’t want to make a noise, he won’t make one. It’s carved into him, and not even worry can go against his instincts. Being quiet, walking silently, staying out of reach were things that he didn’t need to be taught in the first place, and teaching him in the ways of the Quwat Milat only helped it. 

The door is the only noise when he enters the room and finds it dark and quiet. The only light comes from the hallway, and it’s just enough to make him see better, but not enough to enlighten the whole room. He turns to the bed and sure enough, Hugh is sleeping. It looks more like he fell over and then asleep, but he is sleeping. Not in his preferred way, not like a cat under all the blankets he can find. Not in a cocoon of pillows. There is something about it that makes Elnor linger in front of the bed and he bites inside of his cheek trying to find out what it is. His imagination? He moves to the other side of the bed and picks up one of the blankets, since Hugh doesn’t seem to have managed to think that far, and he plans to carefully tuck him in as to not wake him. It’s for his own conscience, to ease his mind and maybe his concern. They can talk about it later, surely. He already wanted to propose to teach Hugh some of his meditation techniques, to help with the night terrors. Maybe they can talk about it later, having some dinner and tea and talking about it. It sounds good to him, eases the swirling concern as he carefully tucks the blanket around Hugh on the bed - only to stop in his tracks the moment he comes close to his cheek. He can’t see as well as he would with light, but still well enough, and he can still  _ feel _ , now he wonders how he didn’t notice sooner, when the person in front of him is practically radiating with heat. 

Elnor reaches out to put a hand against Hugh's forehead, still careful so to not wake him, but flinches back as his palm touches the metal implant over his eye. His forehead feels far too warm, but the implant is practically burning hot, enough for him to still feel the patch of skin where it touched.

“Hugh?” He puts a hand on his shoulder and gently shakes it, only to notice the heat there too, and he doesn’t get a reaction back. He quietly asks the ships computer to give them some light and kneels down on the bed next to his friend, once again putting a cool hand on his forehead, careful not to touch the implant this time. 

“Hugh, wake up!” He shakes him again, but there is nothing more than a groan in return. With the new amount of light he sees that the skin around the implants in his face is red and blistered, his cheeks flushed, but he is pale otherwise. Elnor finds his far too hot hand and squeezes it tightly.

“Please, Hugh. Wake up.” he tries one last time, while looking around and shaking his head. There is nobody close, and calling them is just wasted time. The decision is made quick, in fact, it was made when he realized the temperature, just not this way. Nevertheless, special circumstances require creative solutions, and it’s not like he hasn’t done this before. He has one arm under his legs and one behind his back a moment later, not even removing the blanket, before picking Hugh up, and yelling at the computer to activate the sickbay's hologram. 


	2. The Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the whump? I'll updated the tags to make sure it's safe :) Don't read while listening to It's quiet uptown on repeat while reading. Just. Don't. Especially the parts in Hugh's POV.

* * *

Someone is touching him and he tries to ignore it at first, there is a roaring in his ears and it’s too bright and too hot, far too hot, who turned the heat on like this? It’s all wrong, all so wrong and he wants to flee from it, but can’t, he can’t even move. His body is not his body, he can’t control his movements, he can’t control anything, like a prisoner in his own head. A cool hand rests on his forehead, but only for a moment and he wants to cry when it goes away, because it’s cool and soft and… good. It feels familiar and safe. Maybe someone is talking to him, but even behind closed eyes it’s bright and he can’t answer, he just wants to sleep, and this is weird because he remembers not wanting to sleep. But now, sleep claims him again, and he realizes too late that it is not the soft darkness but a rush of swirling black water that takes him down with it.

* * *

“I can repair the damage to skin and treat the symptoms, try to keep his temperature down, all that, however, something tells me that this is not exactly an…  _ organic _ problem.” The doctor has a hand on his beard, looking down skeptically at Elnor and Hugh, especially Elnor, who is the conscious one of them. He is sitting cross-legged on the closest biobed, and the only reason he isn’t sitting in the exact same position on Hugh’s with his head in his lap anymore, is that it messed with the machines. Still, he only moved that far away in the 40 minutes that had passed and that he keeps track of, since he ran into the room, putting Hugh down on a bed and shouting ‘fix him’ at the hologram, which prefers the name Emil how he found out soon after. Elnor hates how much has not-changed, even with all that has happened in the meantime. There had been no way to contact the away-team, since they were inside the city limits, and they could neither beam in or out, or contact them. Raffi had left them for the planet’s surface soon after, grabbing a backpack and going after them with the plan to get, in an ideal case, all of them back on the ship. Under different circumstances, this would be Elnor’s job, but since  _ they _ are not in trouble and Hugh  _ is _ , they agreed he would stay. Still, it will take nearly an hour until Picard, and especially Soji and Jurati, are back on the ship, even if she finds them immediately. An hour is much and little at the same time, because on the one hand, not even an hour has passed yet since they arrived, and it feels far shorter - but on the other, Elnor is worried what a whole hour can make worse. He watched Emil fix the blistered and angry red marks on Hugh’s forehead anxiously, while hovering close, since he was in the way otherwise. He watched them disappear so fast it is absurd to him, leaving not even a sign something had been wrong a moment before. Now, the skin around the implant is red again. It’s a small change for the better, on the outside, but it is not enough. It’s a trap, making him look better, feel cooler, like he is sleeping peacefully, but Elnor knows it is a trap, he’s seen right through it. It’s not sleep. Elnor  _ knows  _ it is not sleep, he can even see it, when despite pain medication Hugh still seems to frown with closed eyes. His features are not relaxed, and he looks smaller than he should on the bed between them. Elnor can still see the burns on his forehead when he closes his eyes, and even blinking brings it back.

“I burned my hand touching the implant, and it burned the skin around it” He says now. The patch is tiny, but he feels it, and maybe he should. It’s like a scratched knee that is his reminder not to run too fast over on the mountain path, or a broken ankle that reminds him not to jump down from houses. Maybe this is a reminder to trust his instincts, like he was told to do, and what he didn’t do in the last days. “It seems like you need someone skilled in technology then?” 

“Yes, but I’m afraid it’s not simply a technical failure either. The implants are not failing, per se, they are overheating, I mean, they will fail if we can’t fix it, but before that, he’ll get brain damaged, and then it’s too late. That is something I won’t be able to fix. I can try to keep the fever down, which cools the mechanics to some part too, I can give him pain medication, but that won’t work forever, in fact, not even for long, and it will definitely not fix him. If I didn’t know better I would say he is sick, and his body is reacting like it has never been sick before.” Emil gestures around wildly and grabs a tool from the table to examine Elnor’s hand. The small burn is fixed in under a minute, even faster than Hugh’s had been, still, it’s not as comforting as it should be. He can’t pinpoint why. The burns are fixable on the outside, but the inside? It’s funny in a grotesque way, that it is so true. People can be fixed on the outside - they fixed Hugh on the outside after bringing him here, but the inside? How can they fix what’s wrong there? And it’s not only Hugh, it’s a general problem he thinks about a lot, but true, mostly in context of Hugh. But what Emil said makes him think too - what if it as simple as that? He is almost sure it is not, nothing is ever simple, but he wishes it could be like it was in the stories he was told. An easy fix.

“But you know better? You said you didn’t know what is wrong with him, how can you be sure it’s not exactly that?” 

“I have nothing that supports that theory. He is in no way fine, not physically, not mechanically, but apart from the fever he doesn’t show any signs of infection, which I could treat. It’s like he randomly caught a fever, and there are a lot of possibilities who that could happen.” The curiosity nearly breaks through and Elnor wants to know all the options, but he doesn't ask. It’s not the right time, and it is not helping. He will ask things that help, but not something either of them wouldn’t benefit from. “I mean, we know he has a fever. I know how to treat- but not how to  _ fix  _ that. His cortical enhancements are practically glowing, but I can’t just… replace the implants, this is a small ship, I can’t possibly perform brain surgery here, if they fail.” Elnor’s head shoots up.

“But this is not happening, right? They are not failing, he won’t die?!” He is louder than he wants to be, because the possibility dawned on him, of course, but he tried his best to ignore it so far. They came too close to it already, and no, not again.

“No, but it’s a chain reaction. Like… falling Dominos, all in a circle.” He gestures wildly while talking, and Elnor makes a mental note to find out what a Dominos is later, when everything is okay again. 

“To prevent his core temperature from getting too high, the implants try to cool it down. Doing that, they themselves get warmer, which heightens the core temperature, meaning more work for the implants, and so on. A vicious circle.” Dominos sound dangerous, and Elnor swallows and bites his lip. It answers both questions at once.

“So you know what is happening, generally, but need to know why it is happening to help him?” He clarifies again.

“Exactly. It’s a job for both a doctor and a technician, for someone who has worked with Borg-technology before. I have the knowledge of most doctors of Starfleet, but nothing is really similar to this. We have next to no information about Ex-Borg in our databases. And I don’t know an expert on them from the top of my head, I know one other person of his species, but I don’t think we can actually contact her!” Elnor thinks about it - the beacon is not for communication, assuming that he is right and Emil is indeed talking about Seven of Nine. They are supposed to find her as far as he knows, so Hugh can get back to the remaining xBs. That doesn’t sound like an option right now.

“He has a file in Federation databases, but to access that, I need command codes I don’t have. He is not exactly any… ordinary human. It’s classified, and I don’t like that  _ at all _ .” Elnor doesn’t pay mind to what Emil is doing now, he is thinking about their options, with nobody but them on the ship. He thought about the planet first, but not only would they have to beam down  _ and _ find the others again, he also remembers vividly how Picard described the Borg to him, and how Hugh had called them the most hated race in the galaxy. As much as it saddens him, it’s far too likely that they won’t be met with any friendly faces. But the team is already the best option to them.

“Dr. Jurati has a lot of knowledge about the synthetic lifeforms. And cybernetics in general, might this help? Soji worked on the Artifact too.” He knows that Emil most likely came to the same conclusion, but if it doesn’t help the hologram, it helps him. And talking keeps him distracted enough for the time being, makes him feel useful.

“Yes, I already checked. They must be still inside the premises, Ms. Musiker hasn’t reached them yet” He nearly forgot. One of the main reasons Elnor agreed to stay on the ship - as backup for an emergency. Who would have thought that he was in the right place for once?

“Hugh would know.” It’s quiet, since he is more talking to himself than the doctor, but Emil’s head snaps up nevertheless, he holds up a finger and pats it against his cheek.

“Yes… You are right, he would know. And he could give me access to his medical file, which would help. I am just not really comfortable with what that requires to do - if my data is right, and it is, then he would still be… mostly delirious, and definitely in pain. But right now, we can’t do anything else. As long as we’re the only ones here, at least” He turns around and rummages through the cupboards, while Elnor slides off the bed. 

“What will you do now?” At first he doesn’t even realize he went straight to gripping Hugh’s hand again, as if in confirmation that he is still here. It’s still warm, he notices, not burning hot as it was before, but still too warm, off-putting warm. How could he not notice when he arrived? How could he miss it? Had he been like this earlier, in the workshop? This warm? He wanted to respect all boundaries, but now he wonders if overstepping them might be good in few cases, and if he should have listened to his instincts like he was taught to.

“I’ll wake him up!” Emil stands on the other side of the bed, a tricorder in one hand, a hypospray in the other. “Like I said, I don’t like it, but we can’t just do nothing” He puts the device against Hugh’s neck, and Elnor doesn’t even has time to protest. It seems like a cruel option. Still, Emil is a doctor, he is supposed to be the person, they should turn to for help. He knows what he is doing. Or… He should know what he is doing. He didn’t throw Elnor out, he even let him participate, but knowing humans, and the hologram is human-shaped after all, he is not sure if that is good or bad anymore. “I don’t like it,” He decides on  _ good _ , since it is now the third time he has mentioned how much he doesn’t like it, and Elnor decides not to ask why he does it then, and accept the answer as it is. “but it is worth a try. Also, I would like to test his reactions anyway.” The  _ reaction _ to the hypospray is almost imminent, and Emil dims the light when a sharp intake of breath is their first indication that Hugh is indeed waking up. That is not the reaction Emil wants to test, but it is a reaction, and right now, Elnor calls it the only reaction he cares about. 

“...ow.” It’s nearly inaudible, but Elnor is too relieved to hear his voice, even more to see him blink into the already dimmed light, but winces in sympathy when he presses his eyes shut and turns his head away. Emil gives him another hypospray and scans his temple with a tricorder, sighing, but Elnor doesn’t even look. He wants to say a thousand things right now, he wants to say that everything is going to be okay again, that he is in sickbay, that he is in good hands, that he wishes he didn’t lie, he wants to apologize for not noticing and all of it at once. He keeps quiet about it.

“Try again?” he instead asks quietly “I’ll help you sit up, okay?” he lets go of the hand he is still holding in his to help him up, but Hugh looks around and blinks at him in utter confusion, puts his hands flat on the bed to push himself up on his own. 

“What…” Elnor has an arm around his shoulders in an instant, earning him an even more confused look. It’s sleep-muddled and feverish, but his glassy, bright eyes are open, he seems to recognize him, and right now he doesn’t dare to hope for more, because it is the only good news. It’s strange, looking at his eyes, since only one of them is organic and deserves the word ‘feverish’. The other one seems darker now, as if fogged up, and while that is certainly not the case, it’s still not reassuring at all. 

“Easy my friend, take it slow. You have been asleep for some time” 

“I fell asleep?” he asks and Elnor raises his eyebrows at Emil. “I’ll get back to…” He seems to lose track of the sentence, following a line of thought to find it again, “...work? Just haven’t been sleeping well, ‘m fine…” The statement breaks Elnor’s heart and he swallows down all the ways he wants to correct where this is leading, when Hugh makes an attempt to climb off the bed in getting his legs over the edge, pushing the blanket aside, leaning to the side - only that he doesn’t seem able to catch himself. Elnor is quick enough to catch him before he can fall, but there is a moment of silence, followed by a quiet groan. “This is… What is happening?” He squints up at Elnor, who climbs on the bed too now and lets him lean on, which happens without a word of protest or resistance. It says a lot about Hugh’s state of mind that he isn’t protesting or reacting to this at all, just leans on. His movements are slow and sluggish and he looks around sickbay as if he is only slowly realizing where he is. Emil is shaking his head at Elnor, as if he wants to tell him that he doesn’t have much hope in getting anything helpful out of him in that condition. Elnor isn’t sure about it himself, Hugh seems barely awake, muss less lucid. He rests his head on Elnors shoulder and he can feel the warmth of his skin through his tunic, unnecessarily reminding him about the seriousness of their situation. Even though they both know there is not much hope, Emil still tries.

“Your cortical implants are overheating. We haven’t yet found a way to help you, since you are… our only expert on Ex-Borg, at the moment.” Hugh nods slowly, putting a slow hand on his eyebrow and flinching when he touches the metal, staring at his fingers in amazement. Emil gets momentarily distracted and shakes his head, before he continues, “We hoped you might be able to tell us what is going on, maybe even how to help?” He puts his hands together while talking and looks down. 

“...not normal, shouldn’t be warm, and they’re not warm, they’re …  _ hot _ .” He stares at his fingers again and back to Elnor. “This is not possible?” It shouldn’t be a question. Under different circumstances, and if he wouldn’t be as worried as he is, he would find it adorable. He does, in the back of his mind, scolding himself that it’s not okay, the situation is not okay. He shouldn’t think this, he shouldn’t feel like this, the strong desire to just wrap his arms around him after he says it. It’s not right, and again, he doesn’t need the reminder he gets a moment later when Hugh presses two fingers against his temple and seems to slouch over even more.

“...hurts” the confusion is clear in his voice, in his face, and his hand finds the blanket. He stares at it as if he tries to remember what it is doing here, his hand leaving his temple and meddling with the cloth. Emil is scanning him again, and Elnor thinks about maybe counting the hyposprays he admisters, as he does so again, while Hugh’s fingers suddenly stop fidgeting and he frowns at Elnor. For a moment, whatever Emil gave him seems to work, he appears to be more awake, more himself.

“Am I sick?” He asks and touches his face again, away from the implants this time. Elnor takes a moment to answer him. Sick? Yes, he is. But it’s not all of it. There is more of it, and everything else doesn’t seem to work with the word ‘sick’. He is sick. But he is also hurt, and warm, and… even more vulnerable than on the Artifact. He wants to protect him even more now, and so he chooses his words with care.

“Yes, you are. Do you remember when I asked you to get some sleep? I found you in our room later, you were burning up and so I brought you here.” It’s enough information, and not too much. Hugh leans into Elnors hold once more and nods slowly. His head is under Elnors chin now, and he knows he shouldn’t feel the least better while holding him, but for the first time since they are here he feels actually useful. Is it taking advantage? Is he taking advantage of how Hugh can barely hold himself upright? Of how he hopes he won’t remember much of this? Because that would be horrible of him, and he doesn’t want to be a horrible person. But he has an arm around his back and feels his hair on his chin, and it seems to comfort him at least a little bit. So it should be fine.

“Elnor…” Hugh is tugging at his hand and Elnor just takes it in his. It’s not taking advantage. It’s helping, he is here and he wants to be here. It feels right. Except maybe it shouldn’t - he bound himself to Picard and now he is- 

No. He is here. He needs to be here. And he will be here for as long as it is needed.

“Yes, I’m here.” He confirms and adjusts his grip. Hugh is turning his head away and struggles to sit up straighter, looking at Elnor with his face a picture of miserability.   
  
“I think I lied, I’m actually not fine. Everything hurts and that is inefficient and inconvenient and… distracting.” He shakes his head and whimpers the next moment, squeezing his eyes shut immediately. Elnor bites the inside of his cheek. He can’t do anything to make it better, so he does the only thing he can - letting him lean on again, carefully taking it up himself to keep him upright. Emil is still standing close, but seems to be working with his tricorder-readings. 

“It’s going to be fine, we’ll find a way to make you better.” It’s not much more than a whisper, but in sitting up Hugh hasn’t let go of his hand, and Elnor himself showed no intent of doing so, so he underlines his statement with a gentle squeeze. He didn’t touch him before this happened, he wanted to respect all boundaries, but the way Hugh is weakly clutching at his hand makes him wonder if he misinterpreted the situation completely. 

“It hurts…” Elnor doesn’t answer to that.  _ I know. And if I could, I would do anything to make it stop _

“Regarding that, can you tell me how you feel, please? Where the pain is?” Emil asks, the tricorder still in his hand but he isn't using it. It is a stupid question, really, but Hugh swallows and blinks his bright, glassy eyes somewhat clear. He still seems awake, but he seemed almost fine earlier, so Elnor doesn’t trust the word  _ seem _ at all.

“My head hurts, like…” He searches for words and can’t find them and Emil just hums for him to continue. “Cold, mostly, Tired, confused, mostly tired. Warm. Headache, I had that for days but it… It is worse now. I can’t really see… Tired?” He can’t really see - Elnor’s fingernails dig into his palm. What if this is the first sign of the mechanical parts breaking down? Emil can’t perform brain surgery here, he said. It happens so quick, so fast, far too fast!  _ The what-ifs are not going to help you. Focus on the moment, not the next _ \- Focus on the moment, not the next. Now, not then. He needs to ground himself, because he is no use if not. Ungrounded he has to leave - grounded he can stay and help. He takes a breath and relaxes his hand to pull up the blanket that is threatening to fall.

“For days? How many?” Elnor already knows the answer, and he wants to slap his past-self for not noticing, for not doing anything sooner. He dwells on it while he rationally knows he shouldn’t - he shouldn’t! It’s hard to listen to the rational part of his brain, though, when everything else is falling to chaos. He still feels like he should have noticed it, but would the outcome have changed? Maybe this is what bugs him the most, how he maybe couldn’t have done anything to prevent it.  _ Again _ .

“Maybe… three? I didn’t sleep well.”  _ You did not sleep at all  _ Elnor keeps himself from saying almost with physical force. “And looked at screens, so it was to be expected.” There is a pause after that, before, “Are we in sickbay?” The question is not more than mumbled, no sign of the small improvement of being awake from a moment before visible now. Emil looks at Elnor and then back to his tricorder - and leaves it to him to answer.

“Yes, we are. You are sick, remember?” He repeats patiently. Hugh stares at his hands and takes a moment to process the information, until he remembers.   
  
“Oooooh…” Emil hums at that and turns to Elnor again.

“I’ll try to contact the captain once more, finding out how long it will take them to arrive here, if I get through. It’s possible that Ms. Musiker already reached them by now. If he falls asleep, call me, but let him rest. We can’t do much with our limited information.” Elnor just nods.

“Why is he talking like I am not there?” Hugh still sounds exhausted, and the protest seems more only out of principle. 

“Because you are not making a lot of sense right now. Would you like to lie down?” He looks the bed over, because he doesn’t want to let go, but sitting like this, half slumped over, can’t be comfortable for Hugh either.

“I’m making perfect sense, you are just” Once again he seems to lose track of where he wants to go with his sentence and finishes with a whispered “… not.”    
  
“Would you like to lie down anyway?” 

“Yes… No? Moving hurts.” He winces at the last word and his eyes fall shut again, and for a moment Elnor is sure he is asleep again, before he hears a sharp intake of breath, as if he has to summon physical strength to talk, “You’re going to leave now, aren’t you?” Now it’s Elnor’s turn to frown. Leave? Why would he? Especially now, he wants to be there, he needs to be here. 

“Why would I leave?” He asks quietly. Maybe because he doesn’t like being seen like this? He doesn’t sound like he  _ wants _ him to leave, though.

“I didn’t want you to know, so you wouldn’t be worried. Worried is too much, too much of a burden, and I didn’t want to make you leave” He sounds defeated now, but even worse, he says it like it is a matter of fact, the most natural thing in the world. Elnor takes the blanket from his hands with care and instead, puts it around his shoulders and holds him by the shoulders to look at him.

“You are still not making any sense.” Elnor swiftly informs him. “Do you think I would leave because you are sick?” Hugh tries to nod, winces and just vaguely gestures around the room as if to prove a point Elnor fails to see, before his hand just falls back on the blanket.

“You have a mission. People are temporal. People always leave. It’s the only constant in life, that people leave.” The way he sounds like it is the most obvious and normal thing in the whole galaxy makes Elnor wonder what exactly he knows of life, and for how long he’s been lonely. Alone and lonely are two different feelings Elnor separates with care. Alone is what he was on the Artifact, before Seven of Nine appeared. But lonely? He was lonely at the monastery many times, on Vashti in general, after Picard left. He is lonely on the ship sometimes, when everybody is talking about things he doesn’t understand and he is not allowed to ask about. While being alone is the simple absence of people, feeling lonely can be managed in a room filled with them. 

There had been a lot of people on the Artifact-cube. Romulans, Ex-Borg. But people leaving? Always leaving? For that they had to come and stay and go, they had to be there in the first place. 

“I always make people leave, and I tried so hard… And messed it up again.” His voice gives out, and somehow, irrationally, it makes him angry. 

“You are delirious, you don’t know what you’re saying.” 

“I might not know what is happening, but I can very much remember…” His voice gives out and he shakily breathes a few times as if to find the strength to finish.

“remember… this.” 

“Then allow me to prove you wrong. I won’t leave. You are not going to be lonely again.” He hears his own voice and how he sounds like a stubborn child, something he should be ashamed about, something he shouldn’t do, but he couldn’t care less. It’s a spoken promise and a thought he saves, carves into his mind. He won’t let it happen. 

His answer is a quiet chuckle next to him, followed by a whispered

“A nice… idea. Like from a dream…” 

“You are not dreaming. I promise you, that I won’t leave. You are not going to be alone again, you have me now. I decided to bind myself to your cause, and to you. We treat promises like prisons, and I am willing to enter mine. I won’t leave.” He knows Hugh likely won’t remember this, he knows he could have an easy way out if he makes himself a coward, but at the same time, he already knows he would repeat it again and again. He’s grown to care far more than about the cause, he’s grown to care and like and… There is a word he doesn’t dare to use yet, and he stops himself from forming the thought and saying it aloud. 

“For as long as I live.”  _ Because I won’t let anything else happen _

He tightens his hold, since Hugh still refuses to lie down, even if this time, Elnor isn’t sure if he even understood the question.

“I am a truly hopeless cause, hm?” His voice trails of, and Elnor feels Hugh sagging against him fully now, whatever strength he had to hold himself even the least upright simply gone. He doesn’t dare to think anything else.

* * *

It is warm. Far too warm, he is burning, his head is burning, maybe it’s his whole body but it has gone nearly numb. The fire is so deep he experiences it more than feeling it. It could be mistaken for cold for a moment, before it is so hot he wants to cry out. His limbs feel filled with lead, and he felt like this before and a distant part of him wonders if he should not like it. He doesn’t like it, but thinking about it requires focus he doesn’t have. He is awake, he thinks. Hopes? He should be awake. He remembers waking up, but there are a lot of memories of waking up, they could all be true or wrong or both. Blinking makes the pain worse and still he does it, looking at intertwined hands and a blue sleeve. It’s cool, and firm and it means so much. Even with his thoughts a mess and hurting he feels how much it means. He should say it. He needs to say something because a hand holds his and makes him feel less alone. Something has happened about the word ‘alone’, he wants to cry when he thinks about it even more now, and the more he repeats it in his head the more he feels the need to hang on, cling to the person next to him and not let go, as if they alone could take the pain away. 

The next moment, his world tilts and he squeezes his eyes shut again. The rush of motion makes his stomach turn, sick from stomach to head and back, like the turbulence in a shuttle. His head collides with firm but not hard ground, and the hand threatens to leave his, his fingers slip, his grip to reality slips- 

“No…” He can’t hear his own voice, and it’s pathetic how much he is afraid of being alone with his burning head and his thoughts that have already fallen to ash. No seems the right word and he repeats it over and over and over again in his head and maybe aloud because he doesn’t want whatever is happening here, he doesn’t want to be alone, he doesn’t want anything, anything else than the pain to stop. He wants the pain that is searing into his head to stop, he needs to… to- there was something he needed, once, but it is lost in the ashes of his memory now. 

“Shhh… It’s alright, I told you I’m not leaving, I’ll stay right here” The words are in the right order but he gets caught in between them nevertheless. Leaving leaving leaving leaving… Everyone is leaving, everyone promised not to and then they did. A soft weight is put over his shoulders and he blinks again. He finds himself staring into a room, laying on his side, and can make out the washed features of a person in blue. Blue - not red. Red like fire, red like pain and red like blood, not green like the cube and pain and torture, not black like the vastness of space and refined metal, not white like the light everywhere that makes him close his eyes again. But blue. He remembers blue in water, the sky of a planet. Blue like the mechanic eyes he looked into, blue like coolness. Blue like the person who is here and he knows not the name, but the feeling of, names are irrelevant but people are not. He is not. And he is here. Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue…

“I didn’t know you had a favorite color?” Has he said it aloud? He tries to focus again, focus onto something that stops the dizziness, but the person is moving and he surrenders to the darkness of closed eyes in favor against the shining room. His person? His blue man comes to sit on his bed and puts a cold, cold like blue, cold like the color he loves, on his forehead. He says something. And more. He keeps talking, and Hugh tries to listen, but his focus comes and goes, it’s words and not more that he says to him. It doesn’t help against the urge to cry out in pain, he still wishes he could scream, but it’s distracting. His blue angel who stays. It’s a thought that swirls around the burned and robbed room that should be a hall of memories, a blue angel fighting the ring fire around him, slow and unsteady, but he still fights what Hugh can’t muster up the strength to fight. The darkness around him grows heavier, and while he is burning, he is freezing now too. He doesn’t know if this is good or bad, or anything at all, it doesn’t matter, nothing matters since nothing makes sense. The voice keeps talking. Words. So many words he can’t understand… 

The cold spreads over his back and arms, makes him shiver, just that it doesn’t stop. He can’t stop shivering, shaking, and he can’t move, still he does-

Darkness takes him once more, the moment Elnor stops talking. 

* * *

Elnor didn’t realize that Hugh was still awake when he carefully lowered him down on the bed again. Sleeping while sitting up was in no way comfortable, and in his opinion Hugh was already uncomfortable enough. He didn’t even see his eyes opening when he let go of his hand to pull the thin blanket over him, until the whispered  _ No _ got his attention. Just that it didn’t stop there. 

“No, nonono…” 

  
“It’s alright, I told you I’m not leaving, I’ll stay right here” He answers with the hint of a comforting smile, or tries to, looking around to see if Emil is close. But he had told him to let Hugh rest. 

“Blue… You are blue, blue is… I like blue…” His voice is weak and high-pitched in between, like he is holding himself together by the strings of a broken rope.

“I didn’t know you had a favorite color?” He gets up on the bed and frowns at the heat that is already radiating from Hugh again. Is he warmer than before? 

“But I like blue too, you know? The sky on Romulus was red, but it was blue on Vashti. Zani told me stories about Romulus when I was still a child, and Picard told me about Earth. I feel like maybe Vashti is my story to tell now, since it is the only place I really remember. It wasn’t a nice place, since the Federation left it fell to pieces. Nobody wanted humans or evenliked them, everyone was so angry. But this is just what everyone saw. I don’t suspect you know a lot about your own childhood from what I know about the Borg. On Vashti, we had the mountains near where I lived. You could see the suns set there, and on the other side, how they rise. I wasn’t allowed outside at night, of course, but I still sneaked out.” He smiles a little at the memory. “I will show it to you one day. In the moment between the two suns setting, when one is already gone, and the other needs just a few moments more, the sky is so blue, I don’t even know what it is called. It’s the most beautiful sight, the sky there. I sneaked out there to watch it so often, and always got scolded badly when I came back. Not for breaking the rules, or, only a little for breaking the rules. Mostly because they were worried. Zani was worried a lot, and she was always there. I asked myself, more times than one, if I was the cause she bound herself to. She protected me, and she taught me all I know now about the Quawt Milat, while knowing that I could never be a Qualahaki. Never. And still, when I asked her to, she showed me all of it. I know that people can be a cause, hopeless and lost, or not. But I am not Quawt Milat in the way she is. It bothered me, that I couldn’t be, for a long time. That I didn’t belong, that Picard was supposed to take me away and to people who were better suited. They didn’t lie, nobody lied back at home, pretended to be something else, and even while I do that too, I am not one of them and they never let me forget it. But this is what it is about - I am not one of them. There is nobody like me, and so I get to make my own rules, my own choices, my own life. And the cause I bind myself to doesn’t have to be a hopeless one. I want to be someone who brings hope to the hopeless cause.” He swallows hard and looks over to Hugh again. 

“There is always hope. You are not a lost cause, and even if you think you are, even if you would be, I am here. And I will make sure you are not. I can find you, if you are lost. I found you once, and I can do it again.” He lets his legs dangle from the bed and looks to his side again. “And I will find you, however lost you are.” He supposed that Hugh is sleeping, he should, he saw him fall asleep, but suddenly, he isn’t so sure anymore. As he leans closer, he sees that his eyes are open, slightly, unseeing, and now he is… shivering. Which could be from the fever, of course, but it is… different. He looks over to where Emil is, who puts his PADD away as he catches his eye, coming closer.

“Hugh? Hugh, can you hear me?” Elnor gets down, crouching tiptoed on the floor. Maybe it is all too much now, maybe it’s the pain making him cry? He could understand. “I’m right here, you’re going to be okay” He doesn’t get a response back, and the shivering doesn’t stop. He isn’t crying, but as with a lot of things today, it’s no relief. Is it just his imagination or is he even warmer now? He was basically radiating with heat in their room, and maybe it is the relative coolness of the room, but he seems to do so again, and more. He puts a hand on his back and frowns, Elnor wanted to draw the blanket up but even if it’s thin, maybe he should better take it away? He watches as Emil turns Hugh on his back. His eyes remain partly open, but what really confuses and concerns him is, that he stays rigid like a board, even after being moved, and Elnor realizes that it is not his own grip on Hugh’s hand linking them together, hot and cold. It’s too strong to be natural. He pulls it out with difficulty to make space for Emil. The hologram is shaking his head and 

“It’s spiking… This is too fast, he’s too warm, we have to-” He curses but gets interrupted, as the next second, a tremor seems to run through Hugh’s whole body. And then another. The next moment, the back of a hand collides with Elnor’s nose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^^


	3. Oceans between you and me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't hink I ever considered so many things before uploading a chapter. Originally, it had over 2000 words more, in the not-finished state. I can't post a chapter with 8000+ words, and also, that would mean to let you all wait for days more. I'll have a shorter chapter up next, and probably until the weekend if I'm good? I don't know, this is all just pain and suffering, but hey, have fun!   
> AN: Nanotech. I made up so many things about it and I just hope any of it makes sense. If not, Elnor is telling this, and he is a precious murder roll, not a technician. Have mercy on me.

“What is happening?!” Elnor stumbles back two steps, just to jump forward again. Hugh is not simply lashing out, he is fighting but not fighting something - no coordination, no control, he doesn’t seem to be aware what he is even doing, and there is no sound escaping his lips. Elnor remembers how he fought when he woke up in sickbay after the events on the Artifact, he had fought then too, but he had fought Elnor, Emil, he wasn’t aware where he was, but he was at least somewhat conscious. Now there is nothing even close to awareness, and it scares him. Concern becomes fear in a moment, because now he doesn’t know what is happening anymore. He knows what a fever is, he knows that Hugh didn’t want him to leave, he knows these things, but his only fear until now had been shoved as far back as possible, now it crashes down again.

“Hugh!” 

“Stay back! He is seizing, he can’t hurt himself on the biobed, but he can with us close, we have to wait it out, understand?” Emil holds him back with a hand which he immediately withdraws, he has stepped back himself, rapidly typing on his PADD now.

Elnor can’t do more than nod shakily, his eyes sting and his throat feels swollen, he can’t breathe and winces when he tries to breathe through his nose to calm himself, it hurts, but it only grounds him a little. His eyes are glued to the bed, to twitching arms and legs, and he wants to look away, he doesn’t want to see this, he doesn’t feel like he can survive seeing Hugh like this, but he can’t look away. While Hugh seems like he can’t stop moving, Elnor can’t move at all. He is paralyzed, staring, and only when he mechanically wipes the tears from his eyes he feels something wet under his nose and stares at green blood on his hand. It’s not much, and blood doesn’t really faze him, but right here and now he stares at his hand instead. He doesn’t realize Emil moving to the bed until he hears a tricorder beep. It makes him look up, look to the bed, where Emil presses another Hypospray to Hugh’s neck, even while his view is watery and distorted, he can still see enough. How Hugh is still twitching, not as violently as before, but nevertheless still, and Elnor can only assume that it is the hypospray what makes them subside when they finally do. He steps closer, swallowing hard, one hand over his nose and mouth, pressed down hard enough to hurt even more than it does already, but he can feel his hand filling with blood - he can’t look away. He can’t step away. A million questions fill his mind, and they all end badly, he tastes blood on his lips and still. It hurts, but the pain is overflowed with the shaky feeling in his whole body, he wants to run away or fight or do  _ something _ . The adrenaline doesn’t subside just yet, his eyes are wide and the tears flow freely, while he isn’t even crying. He feels like it, when he looks at the now unmoving form of Hugh. The contrast of his nearly ashen skin to the bed, washed up like a grotesque and old painting. Black and pale. He even takes too long to realize that Emil is talking, and it is what brings him out of his stupor.

“I don’t like this at all, and-” He looks up as if he expects Elnor to support his statement somehow, but continues with a surprised “oh boy, let me have a look at your nose?” The blood is seeping through his fingers now, and he still keeps it pressed over his nose, even as Emil escorts him to sit on the bed behind him and tilts his head back enough to let the hologram scan his face. The adrenaline leaving means that the sharp pain breaks through now, and he briefly wonders how he could ignore it before. 

“Not broken, luckily. That’s what a hand with titanium-lined bones does to you, but… good reflexes, hm?” Emil’s fingers carefully palpate the area around his nose, but even that hurts, and for a second he even doubts the not-broken diagnosis. 

“If I had, I would have jumped out of the way.” Elnor’s own voice is nasal and strange, he tastes the copper of blood on his tongue. His eyes slowly stop to water now and he holds perfectly still when Emil fixes the bruise on his face now. Not for the first time he asks himself why it is so easy to fix this, but not Hugh. Hugh. Without the waterfall in front of his eyes he can now actually take in what he sees when he looks at him. The skin around his eye is purple, and he can see new blistering burns on one side, shadows on the other. He isn’t moving anymore, but the tension he could see before they woke him up is gone now too. 

He doesn’t dare to touch him, again, why does this keep happening? Why is he scared of making it worse? It’s not like he could. There is blood on his clothes  _ again _ and it seems so awfully familiar. It’s not Hugh’s blood this time, it is his own, but the thought only comes to him later, since the situation is the same.

Emil explained to him that seizures sometimes happen to people with a high fever, and that he has to give him stronger medication which he is not comfortable with, since it puts additional strain on his body. He explained that he thought they had more time and he said that the team should be back soon and how they got the parts they needed and are close even. It is hard to listen to him, Elnor hasn’t said a word since he got his nose fixed, his mind is blank, all thoughts bubbling deeper within him. He keeps his eyes on Hugh, as if he could disappear at any moment, for a sign, any sign, that it could happen again. He couldn’t change it if it would, but it gives him something to do, something that takes his mind off of how familiar all of it feels. He keeps his hand firmly wrapped around Hugh’s again, his thumb on his wrist where he knows and feels a pulse, his free arm is wrapped around his knees, sitting on some stool that hadn’t been there earlier. His face still throbs. The numb calmness he feels is so unlike him that he can’t place it, it’s wrong, he feels wrong. 

It is a relief when the others come back, and while he is not prepared for all the “what happeneds” that he and Emil both get from far too many voices, nobody makes him go yet. He wouldn’t, of course, he wouldn’t leave. He promised it, and the other option is walking up and down the whole ship, restless and not more useful than he is here. Emil has more skilled people now, technically he doesn’t need Elnor here anymore, if he ever did in the first place. 

He only steps away when Soji starts to examine Hugh again, and even then only when Picard asks him to. 

“Have you been here the whole time? If you need a break, Hugh is in the most capable hands now” He puts a hand on Elnor’s arm while talking. Is he concerned for him of all people? Why? And then, the feeling is back, he’s had it before, especially when Hugh was here the last time. He wants to spill over, tell Picard, talk to him, ask him for advice and it threatens to break out. He was taught to keep himself together, and he never experienced many situations where it didn’t work - only few so far, only one on Vashti, to be exact. The violence, the mistrust, it was different. He was angry, so angry that he couldn’t change it, but anger was a feeling he was taught to use to his advantage. He knows how make anger work for him so he doesn’t work as its tool. And fear, oh fear is so much harder, it fights with cold hands and pulls him down, fear is what gripped him too tight on the Artifact. But there are ways to get over fear too. Fear, anger, sadness was a factor that could drive him, when controlled. He is supposed to accept his feeling as a part of who he is, as the only way to control them. Act with them, not against or despite them. Feelings and instinct could go as one if paid close mind to. The moment he realized Picard wasn’t coming back to get him was the moment all of them crashed together. While normally his feelings were not only a part of him, but they manifested through everything he did, they took over. He was detached, controlled, different. Controlled by what he was used to control himself, and thinking back, it is not something he wants to experience again. The stakes had gotten higher, when this set him off then, it wouldn’t now. Seeing Hugh seemingly die had let fear control him, but he had been able to do something, getting Seven of Nine, protecting others, Picard. Now it was the uselessness that threatens to overwhelm him, and he wants nothing more than to shout it out, cry and scream and be silent all at once, which is not possible, not helpful. Just that nothing he could do now was helpful to Hugh, to anyone. Only one action, only one way helped, not Hugh, but Elnor. 

“I don’t want to leave, and I don’t understand how you are worried about me. Hugh is the one-” He stops himself in the last moment, nearly, he nearly said it. He nearly said it aloud, nearly let himself break, say what he is scared of. And holds back the river with only a stick and a stone. Maybe Picard notices anyway, because he squeezes his arm and comes a bit closer. It’s only a little awkward, since Elnor is taller than him.

“He won’t die. The Program is a skilled doctor, and even if that wouldn’t be enough, he has Soji and Dr. Asha here too.” He looks over to the small group, and Elnor looks back to Hugh. “...and it also looks like they are going to call an old friend” He smiles while saying that and Elnor starts to hate him a little. How can he? How can he say that there is hope when he wasn’t here? When he didn’t see it? How can he smile when only ten minutes before, Elnor had to watch helplessly when Hugh moved without his own accord? How can he?    
“There is nobody else who has as much knowledge about him than his best friend, Geordi.” He feels like he’s heard the name before, but the mention of a friend doesn’t help. He wasn’t aware that Hugh had friends, it contradicts with his words from earlier, how everyone is leaving. Who is this friend, if he left too? And if he is so important, if he knows everything about Hugh - why hasn’t he told him? He nods along to Picard’s words, but… 

  
“I will remain here, I promised that I won’t leave” He tells him firmly. 

“Nobody will be angry if you don’t, I want you to know that. Or if you need a break. Everyone would understand.” Is this what Hugh meant? That people leave when it gets difficult? And not even difficult for them, while yes, seeing Hugh like this hurts him deep in his heart, but the thought what he is going through? How he must suffer? And how he feels, lonely and in pain? It doesn’t lessen the pain, it doesn’t invalidate it, but it puts it into perspective. He doesn’t want everyone to understand, he doesn’t want their attention, more importantly, Hugh wouldn’t want their attention like that.

“I won’t leave.” He repeats in a quieter voice, “I don’t want to leave. But I want to know what is happening, I want to be here in case he wakes up. I want him to know that he is not alone, that I am here, with him, and won’t leave.” Picard’s expression changes from concern to surprise as he talks, and suddenly, he just smiles again. It’s a different smile, and Elnor doesn’t want to hate him for it. He seems almost understanding.

“I trust you judgement, and you. And that you will always do what is right, Elnor. It’s in your nature, you have always been like that. Another knight with a sword, and you grew up to be a real one. I’m glad that you stay here, and proud that you do. But I’m here if you need to talk about it.” He says and claps him on the arm, and just leaves. 

Is this one of the inspirational speeches Raffi told him about? Because he feels like he was just given one. 

“To talk about… what?” But he says it to thin air. Picard is next to Soji now, blocking the screen in front of them. Is that the contact to Geodi? Is that them trying to get to him? They somehow all know each other, Rios and Raffi and her and Picard, even though Rios is not here. And Picard knew Hugh, and Geordi. Who is Geordi now? 

He sits down on it cross-legged, perfectly balanced, and takes up Hugh’s hand again. Maybe this is all he is now, all he will do now. Sitting here and existing. While he tries not to drown in his thoughts. Still, he is surprised when the hand in his twitches and he sees Hugh frown, turn his head away from the voices of the others. 

“It’s okay, they are just trying to contact your friend.” Elnor explains. Should he get Emil? But Hugh doesn’t even seem to be really awake. “Picard and the others are back now, and they work this out. Go back to sleep” 

“Geordi?” It’s whispered in a rough voice and with a half-open eye, while the other remains closed. 

“Yes. You never told me about him, but he seems to know you best. I will ask you a lot of questions about him later, but right now you need to rest, so… sleep?” 

“Can you…” His unfocused view is on Elnor now, who instinctively leans closer, “can you tell him I’m sorry?” Sorry? 

“What would you have to be sorry for?”

“Didn’t… reply.” To blink his mechanic eye open seems a lot harder than before, it stays shut after twitching 

“Stopped when… there was Zhat Vash on the ship…”    
  
“I’ll tell him” Elnor promises quietly, “How do you feel? I can get Emil, if the pain is too much” 

“No… Just… numb, and… warm. So tired. Nightterrors, I’ll be fine in a minute…” Elnor decides not to discuss the issue again. He doesn’t want to upset him, and he said it before, fine in a minute, fine soon, fine without help. He feels the need to talk to him about it, but he won’t do it now.

“Of course.” He lies and his tongue feels heavy. It’s the right thing to do, but it feels wrong nevertheless. “Tell me if you need anything, I’ll stay here” He blinks again, but looks to Elnor’s left as if he is looking at someone else, and he turns around - there is nobody.

“Oh… Geordi…” There is a weak but sheepish grin on his face and he raises his hand that is still locked with Elnor’s in an attempt to wave, “can you meet Elnor? I have another friend now!” His glassy eyes still stare to the empty space on Elnor’s left. 

“Hugh… There is-” Nobody? 

“You didn’t tell me you were coming, I would have… Taken better care of things. Must have done something stupid to get here. Oh!” His face lights up and Elnor isn’t sure if he should be scared or calmed by it. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t reply. My PADD is still… on the Artifact. We had a lot of … things…” He hums as if he gets a reply back, but at this point, Elnor is too confused at to what to do. He just listens to Hugh babble on to what is no doubt a hallucination, but a good one at least. It dawns on him that it could be so much worse, that he could see Narissa, that he could be terrified by them, and while hallucinations are certainly not good, they are better than seizures. Better than agony. Maybe this is the reason Emil wasn’t comfortable giving him stronger medication? In the best case, it is just a side effect, since Hugh doesn’t seem to be a lot warmer than before. He is burning, still, but there is a difference between that and nearly an hour ago.

“...so much to tell you, but ...don’t feel so good. ...you look at my eye? It’s not working, and…” his voice gives out and his eyes flicker, this is the moment Elnor intervenes again. 

“Why don’t you get some more rest now? You are going to feel better if you slept, and then you can talk?” He proposes and even looks to the side for confirmation, even if it is just air to him, and he is speaking quietly enough as to not alert the others. It’s wrong, so wrong, he hates it.  _ There is nobody _ he wants to scream, but the need to be truthful gets overwhelmed by the need to not hurt Hugh. 

* * *

“Sleep is… dreaming…” Although he’s lost what they were talking about, the word ‘sleep’ stuck. He is a floating thought, not more. The memory of a cutting pain is still there, nails in his head, digging deep into his brain, but he feels detached from it now. He is on a different level, he knows he hurts, but he is also caught in a loop of something else he can’t describe. It’s confusing, but he got that there are others here. Not in his head. 

“That’s why I am here, to protect you” Well, this is just ridiculous.

He wants to laugh, but it gets stuck halfway up his throat, because it is a beautiful thought. Elnor being in his dreams, fighting off what’s haunting him, like a knight in blue armor. Beautiful beautiful beautiful-

“You can’t see it. ...fight it, too much…” To think that it is possible is dangerous, and it gets washed away too quickly to grasp it, leaving the knowledge that he can’t. 

“You can tell me about it. Over and over again, until it helps” It’s so new. He’s never talked about them, even if… If… Sleep. Something about sleep. And other people. Other people means something, but meaning loses, well, meaning now. 

“...others?” He manages and fails to open his eyes again. 

“They just contacted your friend, I told you they were trying, and now they are talking” Friend?  _ Hugh has a friend  _ No, I _ have a friend _ , it’s important, somehow. His friends, more than one, he has more than a friend. Geordi is a friend, Beverly, but Elnor is different and that cuts through the fog for a moment. What is more than a friend? What is Elnor?

“...are you?” His words get lost, and his mouth is dry and he gives up, the frustration makes it worse, even if he is so detached, the frustration alone makes him hurt. The floating intensifies, around him, in him, and he realizes that the voices are much quieter now, further away. He needs to say this, now, because he can’t think, but he needs to. Even when everything is a mess, who would stay? And why? It aches, means so much it crushes him entirely.

“...thank you” He hears himself nearly choke on the words.

* * *

Elnor doesn’t feel ignored. He can’t do much, and so he feels… useless. He watched the next hypospray pressed down by Soji this time, and she didn’t say anything. While it would comfort him to talk to Hugh, he doesn’t like the idea that the others could be listening. He feels weird, when everyone is listening, and the possibility of him telling Hugh about what is going around his head now and the room suddenly going silent, all eyes on him? It wouldn’t help anyone. He wants to dwell on the ‘thank you’, and how it made him want to hold him because there are a million times  _ always _ on his tongue and he needs to figure out what it means. He is no stranger to love. Neither to platonic, nor to romantic love, but the concept is gigantic to him. It contains so much, so many possibilities, so many options. And still, nearly all of them lead to an almost simple conclusion. He feels love. And he cares. One doesn’t invalidate the other, and while they can go together, they don’t have to. He cares about the crew, and he likes them, but he loves Picard. And, in a different way, he fell in love with Hugh. It’s different, because while he loves Picard for their shared history and the stories he brought him, he loves what he sees when he looks at Hugh. He loves what he does, how he reacts. He loves how he smiles or how he never seems to be sure what to do with his hands. He loves how he doesn’t know that Elnor noticed when he stayed awake to watch him meditate. He loves how he gestures around when he is excited, and he wants to see more of it. He wants to know what he is passionate about, he wants more time, he needs more time with him. Elnor wants to sit down in a room with him and ask him to tell him everything he remembers, and he wants to tell him what he himself remembers. He wants to know every single piece of information he can get, about every person he ever cared for and whoever hurt him, about everything he did on the Artifact and what Elnor would never understand, and he loves how he can admit that. He loves how he can say what he thinks straight away and while he sometimes gets a chuckle for it, there is no eyeroll, he loves how Hugh seems to notice everything. He loves how he kept talking after Elnor’s nightmare as if he felt that he couldn’t stand the silence, he loves how he didn’t have to say anything and how his doubts that were even concerning Hugh’s survival on the Artifact didn’t make him angry or dismissive. And these are not things he likes, or likes to see, or needs. Nothing feels forced between them, and the way it hurt when Hugh cut him off these last days was deeper, it didn’t make him angry like it would with nearly anybody else, no, it made him worried. Everything seems to mean so much. How is everything so meaningful? It is, and it’s obvious. He loves Hugh. And he loves him in a different way than he loves Picard, but does that mean that he is  _ in love _ with him? He has never been in love. He fancied people, of course, and loved and cared, again, it’s different. He is sitting here and feels scared for that time he needs. He so desperately wants. Useless. He needs to do something, but there is not much he could do to make Hugh more comfortable, according to Emil he shouldn’t be aware of anything that is happening around him, because if he would, there is nothing they could do anymore. He overheard Emil sharing how he was concerned about the medication he was giving with Dr. Jurati. Maybe if he tells Hugh a story, he will wake up. Even though it’s not like it is really silent in the room anyway.

It doesn’t help. He tries to think about what Hugh likes, actually likes. What would make him feel better if he were awake. He knows Hugh likes chocolate, but it’s not an option right now. The same goes for tea or coffee. Anything warm, really, since he still feels like a living fire. All it does is to put him back in an endless circle of how he cares, while one question remains open, one question he is scared to think and even more to get answered. 

“I still need to talk to you… So you have to stay with us.” He whispers and looks up, sees everyone else distracted and clasps his burning hand between his own. 

“With me. Even if you say that you don’t love me back, I can’t stand the thought of losing you. Please.” 

* * *

“Okay, so we’ll look into the nanos, but they were barely able to hold a patch over the bleeding in his neck, I don’t know if they can help there.” 

_ Voices. Talking, voices around him, plural, more than one. Around him? Are they really around him? Are they in his head? What if they are in his head?  _

“If we activate them, they will do what they were programmed to do and try to connect him to the collective again, we would need to find a way to have them only break the circle in his cortical ones. If we don’t, they will take over the leftover tech, multiply, and re-assimilate him.” 

_ NO _

_ No, please, no, stop, stop it no, please don’t, no no no _ .

The sentence has more words, but only assimilation is clear to him, and no, please no, he would rather die, die here and now and burn to death.

“There might be a way - 

He knows the voice, he knows and knows and knows and… He still knows Geordi. He can’t think, he can’t remember, he can’t move, but he remembers Geordi, he knows Geordi. Geordi is his friend, he wouldn’t assimilate him. Or would he? What if everything has changed? Would he? Would he? His face stings, and burns, and burns even more because he knows Geordi’s voice, he recognizes it, but what are they doing? 

_ Please no, please, no, everything but not this _

“Hugh?”  _ I am Hugh, I need to stay Hugh, I have to stay Hugh let me be, let me stay Hugh, don’t make me third of five again, don’t make me not-me, don’t make me an us, please, I can’t be more than one again, please!  _

“Hugh, can you hear me?” The voice is quieter, and doesn’t interrupt the others, and it makes everything worse. He can’t have them do it again, he can’t…

“You are going to be okay.” An ice-cold hand touches the side of his face that is not burning, and it feels real.  _ What is real?  _ Stroking something away from his cheek. “You are going to be okay.” Elnor. He knows Elnor, Elnor who stayed, Elnor who promised to stay. Elnor who is blue like the night sky, and chasing away the fire. Elnor won’t let them re-assimilate him? Nothing is certain, he can’t be sure about anything, and it terrifies him. He knows nothing, knows nothing like a mindless drone. And his mind is empty and dark, and falling away from the world is welcome this time, the darkness of unconsciousness a hiding place.  _ Please don’t. Please no. _

* * *

It takes Elnor a moment to realize that Hugh is crying. He doesn’t make a sound, he doesn’t move, there is no sign but the tears. He isn’t awake, or he s houldn’t be, he should be sedated against the pain after their encounter earlier, still he cries. Elnor wipes away the tears from his burning face with care and even if Hugh shouldn’t be able to hear him, tells him that everything will be alright again. Because he has to be.  _ They will find a way _

He keeps his grip on his hand, two fingers on his wrist to feel the weak pulse there. Can he hear them? Because if, if he can, can he feel too? And does this mean he is in pain? He pets his hand, wrist.  _ It’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay _

As desperately as he wants to help out, he can’t keep up with the technical and medical words the four people throw around. Dr. Jurati gestures to pictures and Geordi glances over worryingly to them every so often. He hasn’t really looked at Hugh’s presumed friend yet, but he listens to the others and decided, that he liked him so far.

“Last time he was in life threatening danger, they activated too, without turning him to Borg again, why aren’t they doing it now?” He’s asked himself the same question Dr. Jurati asks now, but to no avail. What he notices however, is how Soji behaves. He is curious of her and Hugh’s shared history, and how she seems to know so much about him, but also, he sees how she keeps herself away from both of them. He knows Hugh gives her space, and cares, and he sees how she does too. And he can’t shake the feeling that they are walking down different roads with that, while Soji probably thinks Hugh doesn’t want to see her, Hugh doesn’t realize that Soji actually avoids him. Now, she doesn’t look at them at all, and while she participates in the discussion, it’s mostly short comments, she taps a finger against her chin rhythmically, until, so suddenly it makes half the people in the room, including Elnor, jump, she claps her hands together. 

“We had a situation on the Artifact, where one of the patients in the health ward was nearly killed by another one. Like a failsafe, the Nanos jumped into action and saved her, but when it happened again, weeks later, we nearly couldn’t save her. What I’m saying is that Hugh was saved by them once before, so we can’t count on it to happen again. They are for one emergency, and he had that. One … joker if you want.” She shakes her head. 

“But there is a way to make sure he stays himself.” She says and looks at the screen with Geordi’s face on it. “We fought a similar problem with the reclaimed xBs, but not in this way. We needed to find a way to switch off the nanotech without risking organic failure, which didn’t always work. Most of the times, what we wanted to prevent was what happened, even with the already reclaimed Borg. The nanos begin to work everywhere at once, the most efficient way, healing injuries and assimilating, like organised groups. We can’t hack the technology, similar to the Borg themselves, they work like insects, like a group of bees. In the end, we managed to reprogram a few formerly broken ones, but it took too long to be a solution. We couldn’t break the Queen-program, and if we did, there is just no way to get in there as one single mind, but we found a way to imitate it, to make them work if needed”

“Hacking them would take years, she is right” Elnor sees Geordi leaning forward. “But  _ if _ we could imitate the Queen program, overloading the actual Queenprogram, like a messenger, we could make them work for us, and since the real Queen hasn’t been activated, we only make it seem like she was, they won’t start assimilating.”    
  
“Like a false lead? We send the message to repair the damage, but none afterwards?” 

“Yes and no, it would work theoretically, but we can’t make sure the Nanos stay down after that. If they revert to their core-program, they start assimilating anyway. We need to find a kill-switch.” There is silence after that statement, 

“A literal one. If we get them to work, we need them to stop.  _ If  _ we even get them convinced that their only goal is his brain.” 

“That is what we were doing the research for.” Soji puts up diagrams in their middle. While they look precise, they are also new, as if she drew them just now,

“We wanted to convince them that the person was already Borg, and the damage small enough to prevent shutdown. After that they’d deactivate on their own, until they are needed, healing, but nothing more” It slowly makes sense to Elnor, while the technicians seem to get it immediately, but he sees Captain Rios’ face of utter confusion and feels at least a bit better when Soji continues.

“They jumpstart to save a life, but they normally get their energy from the heightened body-electricity Borg Implants provide”   
  
“Borg replace their dead and injured, they don’t save them, as far as I know?”

“Yes, that is true, but it’s not efficient sometimes. So, if a drone is injured but not bad enough to not be fixed, the nanotech holds it together until rescue, if possible. If they die, they are replaced, but it would be a waste to abandon even only injured Borg. When the drone is back on a ship, it has to be… charged, to get the Nanos and the implants back online, since they break down afterwards. It’s too much of an effort, depending on the time it takes, they even have to be replaced. Since Hugh is able to be alive without most of his implants, they didn’t have to be any of that. Normally, he doesn’t need them, as we have organic fixing methods” 

Geordi chimes back in now, and Rios puts the coffee cups down and leaves, while Elnor carefully puts Hugh’s hand back on the bed to come closer. It sounds like hope, but also, as if they are not sure if it is hope or not. He needs to know now.

“She’s right, we have to kickstart them into life-saving-mode. They only see that he is Borg and the main problem are his cortical implants” There are pictures on the screen now, like blueprints. “We can lead them there, if we get the message right”

“After a dummy program makes them believe that, we can go back to the situation we have now, with the nanos inactive” Soji’s hands are pressed together as she speaks, as if she has to restrain herself from gesturing with physical force.

“It’s theoretical, never tested, but I have the program memorized - it could work”   
  
“If it doesn’t, what will happen?” It’s the first thing Elnor says and asks in hours, because he needs to know, he needs to be certain of at least one thing, and that is their chance now. Because Hugh looks too much like he is losing a fight Elnor can’t fight for him, and nothing makes sense.    
  
“Either we lose him… Or they try to re-assimilate him, in which case we have to intervene” Dr Jurati’s quietly informs him, and once again, there is only silence in the room. Elnor gets everything he needs to know from it, because if it goes wrong, or if they do nothing, Hugh is...   
  
“It’s our only option?” He asks again, to make sure he didn’t miss anything, while he knows he didn’t. 

The looks he gets are answer enough. 

* * *

“Hey…” Elnor is there, he looks at him and he looks so, so sad… Is something wrong? His face is still burning, he wants to beg whatever is causing it to stop, but he can’t. Looking at Elnor is hard, his left eye is blind, but he is even too weak to panic. His face feels swollen and tight, maybe he is in hell, or worse, on a Borg cube, and Elnor is just his imagination trying to save him from realizing that he gets re-assimilated, that they’re right now merging an implant onto his skin, right along the line his scar builds, fusing metal onto his skull, because that wouldn’t feel worse than how he feels. Elnor is still there and he looks like he is maybe trying to smile, but he is the only thing he can actually see right now, since Darkness clouds his vision in growing spots.

“You will be okay. I promise, you will be okay. We will try something now, the others, it’s going to be okay”  _ A promise is…  _ he wants to answer but still can’t, and forgot how it ends. He just blinks up at him, tired, so so tired… Elnors hand feels cold against his cheek and he can’t hear what he is saying. It sounds comforting. Then something gets put on his face, cold, cold as ice and it hurts worse, freezes and burns and… 

“It’s going to be okay!” _Is it?_ That is his last conscious thought.


	4. Once again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short and I hope to have a 'real' chapter up by some time next week :) This didn't fit in with the next chapter or the last one, so I'll put it as a "filler" - Also, I couldn't resist- (see end)

“It’s going to be okay!” Elnor bites his lip so hard he tastes blood when Soji places the mask on Hugh’s face. It covers three quarters of it, goes over the forehead and both his eyes, down the left side, nearly neatly along the scar. It’s a bright white material, lined with something he can’t place on the inside. It makes a disgustingly sucking sound when it is placed, and the formerly even white mass now fits perfectly, forms a second skin that makes Elnor feel sick. But for the first time in hours they are not cursed with only waiting, no, there is action happening and he needs to be a part of it, and it’s somehow better and worse once again. The choked up sound Hugh makes when the mask is placed and how he gasps when it forms, it’s worse than the hallucination from before, but better than the seizure he had, and Elnor hates that he even has a scale for it now. Their solution is far from ideal - the Nanotech will kill off every foreign chemical elements in his bloodstream even if it works, and so there is no sense in giving him painkillers. As far as Elnor understood he should be out anyway, not feel anything, but it’s all theoretical. He can see it in their faces, even in Soji’s, how they all hope it works. Picard, who left sickbay in between is also here, brow furrowed and arms crossed, but otherwise hard to read. He hasn’t said anything so far. 

“I activated the nanos, he is out” Emil notifies them, and types something on his PADD, “They still process our false Queen, but so far, they are not … reverting to their core program yet”  _ Yet _

Elnor moves behind the bed, prepared to intervene if something should go wrong. The possibility that he wins against a real Borg is low, but they count on how they monitor every nanobot in Hugh’s body and have a chance to intervene before. And while Elnor himself can imagine Hugh fighting him, he believes that in his current condition, he couldn’t put up much of a fight. However, then he remembers the incident with the seizure and asks himself about how much these two situations can be compared.

His head is spasming to the left, the right, he fights against the mask, and Elnor places his hands on both sides to keep him still. He feels the warmth of his skin through his shirt, and he swallows hard when the mask touches his wrist - where is was cold as ice before, it feels now nearly as warm as the implants when he had first found Hugh.

“Hold him still, they are working on it, it’s not more than a side-effect, just- just hold him still!” Emil commands, eyes on his PADD and Elnor does, he does without even asking, pressing down on his shoulders.  _ Please don’t have him remember this  _ until the movements stop and he is still again. Hugh’s head remains with the masked cheek on Elnor’s hand, and he carefully pulls his hands away, rests them on the mattress on either side in his head, ready to intervene whenever he needs to, carefully staying close - just to suddenly see it. Maybe it is because Hugh’s skin looks almost transparent now, but there is a slight green shimmer traveling up the side of neck, coming from where his chest. It’s not only there. He can see it on the back of his hands now, appearing and travelling up his arms, vanish where his shirt is and reappearing again. He nearly jumps when the green particles arrive in Hugh’s face, wander over the mask-free part of the skin and over to where it is hidden. What he assumed to be a few tiny robots, he sees now far more, like a steady stream. of green light. It intensifies, why he at first could have missed it, he couldn’t now. He hears a gasp in the room and realizes just now that he is not alone with him. Every pair of eyes is locked on Hugh in the middle, the green light that illuminates the visible parts of his face. 

“It works so far” Emil unnecessarily chimes in and breaks Elnor’s stupor. A moment later, the light disappears fully under the mask.

“We have to wait now,” Soji puts her tricorder down on the table and Elnor asks himself how he missed her even using it. “They will need some time” 

“Should we all… stay here? In case he… tries to assimilate the ship?” He looks at Raffi to find out if she is serious, because even while he understands the problem of re-assimilation, even the thought it could happen is so strange. And something he shoves away. It’s not going to happen - it can’t happen- he won’t let it happen. The possibility that it’s not in his control doesn’t even dawn on him. 

“I will stay here” He adds quietly, “I promised to stay, and I won’t leave now” 

There is a discussion following his statement, but it doesn’t concern him as much as it does the others. Keeping someone safe, even from themselves, looking out, staying alert. Protecting someone. He was trained for this. It’s not the situation he imagined, but for the first time in hours he feels of use again. 

In the end, they decide to leave Emil and Elnor alone with him. The process, which is how they are going to call it now as it seems, will take a few hours to complete, and even after that, it’s up to Hugh _when_ he wakes up. Elnor hopes it won’t be too long. 

“I miss talking to you” he admits softly from his place on the stool, his arms firmly wrapped around his knees. Where he held Hugh’s hand before, he doesn’t want to risk anything in touching him now, even with the rational part of his thinking telling him that he could, maybe, “I mean, I can still talk to you, I just miss having you answer. It’s a little pathetic, because… It’s not that long since we talked. But I had a very strange day and I really want to tell you about it. It’s mostly about you, of course, you were here for the most part. I just… Told you all about my days before, and I wish I could now” He sighs and bites his cheek, “Because you’d listen. Not in… listening as hearing right now, at least I hope so, but usually you are listening, and I miss you, I really do” It’s the shortest version of the truth. After a day like this, he yearns to talk about it. He had less bad days and still, talking to Hugh made it all so much better. He wants to do it now too. It makes no sense, it’s not rational, not even close to anything equal to those words. 

“My… my friend, he has been weird in the last days. He didn’t sleep, and I didn’t take it too serious because I know he has nightmares, I just wish I said something sooner, because when I talked to him about it, it was too late. You should have seen him, he looked like a ghost!” This is ridiculous, childish, and it helps, “I found him later, and he was burning. He has these implants, I don’t fully understand, but they seem to malfunction. Our doctor couldn’t figure it out alone, and my friend got worse very quickly-” He stops and wipes his face. He is not crying. He is definitely not crying, and the tight feeling behind his eyes is… is something else, “He was so confused, and I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t do anything to lessen his pain or to help him keep his mind together, I think he didn’t even know who I was at times. But the others called his best friend, which is weird since I didn’t know he had a best friend?” Again, he stops. His face hurts from scrunching up his nose, his nose still hurts, from when Hugh hit him, and… 

“But it’s okay. I need to ask him about it, just because I tell him everything doesn’t mean he has to do the same. He didn’t have the best life, you know? I think a lot of people left him, and there are many memories that still haunt him. I can’t change that, I just hope he maybe trusts me enough to open up one day. And then he realizes that he is not a burden, I think he thinks that, that he is a burden, but he is not. I just don’t know how to make him understand, yet. I could really need your advice on it, but…” he smiles, it’s thin-lipped but there nevertheless, “I will ask you about it, when you are back. Here, with me. And then we talk about all of it, because I have a lot of things on my mind” He intertwines the fingers of his hands and looks down on them. He misses Hugh, it’s true. It’s been days since they actually talked, not the short chats in between, not the confused rambling here. But since they actually sat together and talked, and he misses that.

“Take your time in healing, all the time you need, I miss you, but I also… I don’t want to lose you, and we came too close” Again. 

He shifts in his seat and rests his hands on his knees now, cross-legged. A lot of thoughts, a restless mind, he is not tired, but meditating doesn’t require fatigue. 

He takes his time for it, he would need hours and takes a whole one of it. It helps the itchiness, it helps the deep restlessness in his bones. He grounds and calms himself, not as much as he would like to, but enough to function as well as the circumstances need him to. He only looks up when Emil walks over, adjusting the straps securing the device on Hugh’s head. Elnor resists the urge to say something about how Hugh is going to hate how his hair is tousled and sticking into all directions now, and he does so only because Emil frowns when he looks at the readings on his PADD. 

“Is something wrong?” 

“No, not really, just… A lot of brain activity. Since this whole procedure is entirely new, it’s all a little... unpredictable, but if I am not incorrect, his cortical implants are working to some degree again. His body temperature has dropped, which doesn’t say he is out of the woods yet, but he found the path leading there. I don’t want-” He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because suddenly, Hugh is moving, and this time he is neither lashing out, nor seizing, his fingers twitch, his arms, legs, his mouth moves as if he talks without a sound, and Elnor, who is on his feet and standing behind the bed in the blink of an eye, ready to intervene, looks to Emil who just shakes his head and shows him the PADD with readings that mean nothing to him. He seems horribly unfazed, smiles even, and maybe now is the moment everyone on this ship is officially crazy, because whatever is happening, it’s no reason to smile in Elnor’s opinion. 

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s good!” Definitely crazy, “It’s like… a System-check. The nanotechnology is working, testing his reflexes. It can happen a few more times, actually, until everything works. So far it does look good. It’s fine, they are leaving everything else alone so far” Elnor puts his hands on the mattress again, left and right of his head, as before, ready to intervene, even as it doesn’t seem necessary.  _ A few more times until everything works  _ Maybe he should give up trying to understand it. It makes him feel stupid, because he understands what is happening, but wouldn’t call it good. The twitching subsides again, and Emil nods, seemingly satisfied with what he can read from the curves and numbers Elnor just wishes to understand. The feeling of uselessness is back the moment Hugh stops moving altogether, and he sits down again, staring at the smooth surface of the mask. It looks uncomfortable, and it makes Hugh look worse. Elnor meditated, yes, but all grounding he archived feels gone now. Confusion takes its place. All the others stop by at some point, bringing him food and asking him questions he doesn’t see reason for. He is thankful for the food, though. He didn’t even realize he should eat something, all that had happened only made him sick. 

Niow, the sickbay is only half-lit, and he is alone. Emil is deactivated, and nearly everyone is asleep. He refused to leave, of course, and was surprised when Picard supported him, as Raffi offered to take over. He appreciates it, he really does, and he wouldn’t mind the company, but he firmly decided to stay. He could meditate here, he told them, he did it before, and he should, now, he just… doesn’t want to. After they all left, he picked up the blanket. Since Hugh’s body temperature is close to normal again, he carefully tucks it around him, the way he originally wanted to before this mess went this awful. Hugh is still not sleeping. Technically he is, as long as the nanites work, but it’s not the sleep Elnor is used too. He looks too stiff, and there are- 

He gets up so quick he nearly tips the chair over. He knows what he can do now, he knows the way he can help.

“I’ll be back in seconds” he promises and presses a quick kiss to the hand he is holding before he runs off to their quarters. It is only when he returns a minute later with two blue pillows that he realizes that he did this, and he stops in his tracks in front of the bed for a moment. He never- He never intended to? He did, he thought about it, but nothing more. Just thinking.

Confusion takes over, confusion and something else. He shouldn’t have done that. He wanted to, but he doesn’t even know if Hugh feels- It’s not like he has to tell him- He will. He already thinks too much into a little gesture, he will tell him. Maybe now? While he is asleep? Perhaps if he apologizes now, it will make it easier to tell him later? 

He is almost hesitant to touch him again, but does so - and jumps to his feet when he feels Hugh’s fingers twitch. 

“Hugh? Can you hear me?” His hands over close, he feels his own heart beating and his breathing getting faster, is Hugh waking up? Should he call Emil? 

A moment of silence follows his question, and his heart calms down again when no answer follows. He sighs and lays a hand on Hugh’s chest. 

“Take your time” He tries to smile and glances at his hand, to look closer in amazement. The green shimmer is back, only visible because Elnor’s own hand is now there in comparison. It’s a faint glow, nothing more, but still, it’s there on his skin. Foreign and in a strange way still beautiful. It shouldn’t be there, because he shouldn’t need the nanites in the first place, but now, they are what is helping him, and somehow, somehow it’s good. He has them for a bad reason, but they are doing good now. 

“You are glowing again” He tells him because he wants to fill the silence after his question. It’s another system check. Emil warned him that this might happen, he got his hopes up too fast and gets a disappointment for it now as result. Only that the hand in his twitches again now, and this time Elnor is almost certain he is waking up, when-

“We are Borg. Designation Third of Five. Resistance is- is- is- futile” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...that cliffhanger


	5. Trust the fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look!!!! Plot!!!! Also, I still feel like this chapter is chaos in person, but as much as I was editing... It just got worse. So before it's unreadable, I'll better post it like... two days early

_“We are Borg. Designation Third of Five. Resistance is- is- is- futile”_

Only static follows the statement, the voice in which it is said is almost mechanical, he sounds more like a computer than himself, chopped in words, as if he is having difficulties forming the sentence. Still, the last words don’t work, and he keeps repeating the _is_ until the mechanical undertones lessen, his voice gets softer, quieter. And more like him. 

“Is- is- Not futile. My name is Hugh. I am… just Hugh… Just me” Now his voice sounds strained and exhausted, and He doesn’t even move and there is no alarm from all the precautions they took. Emil doesn’t appear to rush in, nothing happens after the statement, Hugh is as quiet and unmoving as before. Elnor takes a moment before he sits back down. Systemcheck. He does not like the word - it sounds too much like he is a machine, even though he understands the concept of Borg and Ex-Borg, of course. Hugh is neither human nor synth, and the combination of the two is what the Borg are. Just that he is not Borg, as in that he is in no collective, he is not Borg as in that he is his own person. But even with most parts removed, he stays it somewhat, which is what the Ex stands for. But enhancement and the troubles that come with it - that doesn’t really make him advanced in Elnor’s eyes. It cancels out neatly, actually. He is just himself, in the same way Elnor is himself. It makes him good at certain things, gives him enhanced vision, but that is no different to Elnor’s training on Vashti. He knows, of course, that it is different. The circumstances divide them, even though less than visible on the first glance. Still, the complications are for his own mind alone, and the only person he would discuss them with is Hugh himself. 

“Yes, you are, you are Hugh” He says, “And you are going to be fine” He gets the feeling that he hasn’t said anything more times in his whole life, but it’s more for himself than anyone else, “I’m still here, you are not alone” he adds and carefully lifts Hugh by the shoulders to squeeze the pillow under his head, before he takes his hand again. Nobody is here to stop or judge him, and franky, he is tired himself, in more ways than just physical “It’s not ideal, but I figured… You have a blanket, you need a pillow”   
His skin feels cooler now, normal - normal like when he wakes up at night and has to look over to see for himself that Hugh is definitely breathing, and sometimes even touching him then. Normal-warm. Not burning.   
“And you are going to be fine” He smiles a little and hugs his own pillow to the chest, he doesn’t plan on sleeping. His task is to keep Hugh safe, to make sure nothing happens, and the technology in his body doesn’t hurt him further than it already has. The stillness is unusual, and still concerning, but he doesn’t lash out, or tries to take over the ship and turn it into a cube, so it should be okay  
“Take your time… As long as you come back”

* * *

  
He feels… light when he feels again. The roaring in his ears has stopped and there is only a dull and heavy feeling in his head, more so behind his left eye. It could be gravity pulling him down, because he still has a floating sensation in his body. It’s strange, however, makes him dizzy with closed eyes and confuses him even more. Confusion is another strange sensation. Or a feeling? Confused, floating... He tries to blink but finds he can’t, there is something blocking his view, or better, there is something on his face, covering his eyes and forehead, going down all the way to his chin. It’s hard but not painfully so, it just prevents him from opening his eyes. He wore goggles for experiments before, and it felt… similar. Just stuck. Maybe it’s stuck and that is the reason he is floating, but as he lifts his hand to remove it, it gets caught by another one before he even gets to his chest-level. It’s better that way, because the floating stops the moment he moves and pulls him back, down into his body and his hand- If he couldn’t feel the skin on his, he would be sure someone put the Borg-prosthetic back on by how heavy it feels. He is too tired to properly think about what that means, it only slowly dawns on him

“Don’t, it has to stay on.” Elnors gentle voice is next to him, and he just now realizes that he held his other hand, since it’s now cold, and the warmth is firm over his chest. It’s comforting and helps, since he can’t see, can’t even blink, and he is … somewhere. Wherever he is, Elnor is here too. But… there is something on his face, he should be able to see-

“What is that?” He tries to remain calm, but he can hear his voice shaking with exhaustion and the first hints of fear because there is something on his face and he can’t see and he can’t remove it, or no, he was told not to remove it, so maybe he can’t, he doesn’t want to think what happens if he isn’t able to. He searches with his free hand around for any clue where he is. It’s confusing, because the pillow feels like home, the firm mattress like sickbay, and maybe it’s better that he can’t see right now, since the lights are likely harsh, which brings up bad memories. Elnor puts his hand on his chest now, but they stay linked, and he feels the softness of the blanket over his chest. It just confuses him even more. 

“They said it would help. You… You were really sick, I- We nearly lost you” It’s not only his own voice that is shaking, he can hear Elnor’s too, and it sends a spike of panic through his chest, “The device is supposed to help with the nanotechnology in your body,” The nanos? Why would he… He swallows down his questions, because he could answer them himself. The memories are there, just out of reach, separated by a thin fog. But he was burning, he knows he was burning. Also, Elnor was here. Fire and Elnor, it makes no sense but it’s the only constant crystallizing from the fog  
“and it’s… white” There is silence after that, but Hugh can feel the air when Elnor is moving and tugs at his hand to get his attention. It’s not the best description of whatever it is that’s supposed to help him, but the questions are more important now.

“Sickbay?” He asks instead, still hoarse but calmer. Elnor is not letting go, he is not alone. He doesn’t know why but Elnor just stays with him.

“I found you in our room, you were burning and… didn’t react. I am sorry, but I had to get you here, everyone was worried and here, Picard and Soji and…” He continues to count the people and Hugh groans at the thought of the chaos he caused. He waved it off and went to bed to avoid the attention, and now he is in its center. He stops in his thoughts - bed. He had been working, calculations… Headache. Everything else is still fuzzy, but from Elnor’s tone of voice, not hard to put together. His face starts to burn again when he thinks about it, but with shame this time.

“It’s alright, Elnor. Don’t worry-”

“Oh, it is too late for that, I worried too much already. You had a seizure, and you talked nonsense and….” His voice gets louder as he speaks and Hugh flinches at it makes the reasonable pain behind his artificial eye worse for a moment, “I was scared I would lose you. Final, this time” He gets quieter, but before Hugh can answer, another voice cuts in.

“Hey, I told you to call me when he wakes up!” He recognizes the snapping but nevertheless blessedly quieter voice of the EMH, and he desperately wants to rip off whatever blocks him from seeing. He needs to see them, needs to see what is happening. Only voices and sensations are not enough, they are too close to memories he’d rather not have. He can’t just lay around and do nothing - even if he doesn’t feel comfortable with moving either, he at least wants to see. Still, since Elnor doesn’t answer the hologram, he can practically imagine him biting the inside of his cheek. Somehow the thought makes everything a little bit less terrible. Even if he feels like someone put him through another reclamation process, the thought of Elnor makes everything terrifyingly better. 

“Welcome back to the land of consciousness, any opinions or plans on assimilating the ship?” What kind of question is that? What happened here?! 

“No?” He wants to add a Too tired to it because of how ridiculous the question is.

“Any pain?” 

“My head hurts, but from what I remember, a lot less than before” There is no hammer in it anymore, and it’s nothing compared to before. Whenever before was.

“Feeling little things crawling around in your face?” 

“...what?” It’s simultaneously asked by Hugh and Elnor.

“No, that one was a joke” Nobody laughs about it

“Can someone please tell me what actually happened, and why- what is that on my face?” He is more pleading than asking now. 

“I would normally start by asking what you remember, but since you are awake, I assume we can at least take this off now” Emil is doing something with the thing on his face, he feels it move and dig into his nose when he loosens the straps. He didn’t even register the pressure from them before, but now that it’s gone, he is grateful for it. But whatever material the mask on his face is made of, it sticks, and when the Hologram carefully pulls at it, he feels like someone pries a bandaid off his skin - just that it formerly covered his whole face. Elnor’s hand is still in his, he didn’t let go the entire time, which makes the whole situation more endurable.   
“Make sure your eyes are closed, yes? I turned down the light, but it will still be rather uncomfortable” Hugh just hums in approval, itching to finally get this over with. The longer it takes to lift it off, the more he just wants to ask him to rip it off, even if it might hurt. And it’s not like he’s an idiot, straight up blinking into the happy lit sickbay, while okay, yes, he feels like an idiot. Just not that dumb. And he doesn’t even want to be in sickbay.   
The doctor lifts the construction off his face, and only know he realizes how cold it had been. The room is warmer, and the feeling of warm air against his forehead is not pleasing, it only increases the pain that slowly builds back up behind his eyes. Even with his them shut he feels the light and sees it as redness, and it takes no less than three gentle nudges from the doctor to get him to open them, or at least blink a bit. He sees Elnor, blurred and with deep lines in his forehead, his eyebrows even sharper because of it, before a hand disturbs his view. Blurred, too, but closer, far too close in fact and he flinches away  
“How many fingers?”

“Three.” he murmurs and shields his eyes with his now free hand, puts it over them, when the light becomes too much. He is okay. He can see again, he could see his hands, he wasn’t re-assimilated. And maybe that also means, he should show that he is really better. So he puts the other hand flat on the bed to push himself up sideways, supporting himself with the other - he gets a few inches off the pillow before the whole room spins, he squeezes his eyes shut which sends a wave of pain through his head, for a terrifying moment, the hammer is back in it, hitting his temples with too much force, as if it’s also cutting off his earways. The roaring is back, not loud enough to drown out the others, but close. He gasps from the sudden pain, but there is nothing he can do, except for putting his hand back on his eyes, which means falling backwards- just that he doesn’t fall, but is back on his back anyway a moment later anyway. The light above him is too bright again, was it that bad a moment before? He wants nothing more than to curl into himself, put his head between his hands and hear and see and feel nothing, but he has no strength to actually do it

“Easy, not so fast” He hears the hologram through the fog and roaring in his ears, while the hands on his shoulders belong to Elnor, but he isn’t just eased down again, but rolled onto his side. It doesn’t help the dizziness, but he is grateful for it, because he is away from the light.  
“You’re not that fixed yet, a few things are up to your body and a lot of rest” 

“Still… don’t know what actually happened” He is still panting and swallows through the nausea that only slowly subsides, but squints up at the hologram nevertheless - or he tries to, but only now sees Elnor, much closer and clearer than before, crouching next to him. His eyebrows are still raised and - are his eyes always so big? Hugh tries to smile, because he hates to see Elnor worried, and really, he is surely going to be fine, especially since he can now see again. But he just feels him taking his hand again and gently squeezes back,  
“I’m fine?” he tries, but Elnor only shakes his head, and Hugh realizes he last looked that grim on the Artifact

“You don’t get to say that” he whispers back

“You had a malfunction in your cortical implants - a loop, if you want to call it that. They tried to regulate your body temperature, but overheated in the process, which nearly caused them to fail” He remembers… being blind on one eye, burning, his head… Pain doesn’t describe it.

“But that would trigger a complete failure, the amount of brain damage is not fixable, we were working to find a way to… prevent sickness from killing the xBs because the implants didn’t know how to react and completely went amok, but nanotechnology automatically wanted to link them to the collective” He rattles through it and hates how weak his voice is, but the distraction is welcomed, even though the next statement is far from comforting

“Oh, it nearly killed you, emphasis on _nearly_. We activated the nanos, got them to break the loop, hence the mask. We tricked them into believing it was the only problem, and you fully Borg” another memory, shakier than the first. Had he heard them talking about it? Because he remembers, or at least he thinks he does, being sure that he was back, that… But it couldn’t be true, just another nightmare, since he is very sure Geordi had been there too and that is simply not possible. The nanoprobes in his body, however, are not a nightmare, as much as he wishes they were. Reactivating them is a great risk, one he doesn’t know how he feels about, that the others took. They are the invisible leftovers, the ones he can never feel or see or control. Reactivating them could make somebody control him - or not him, but his body. There is a lot of remnant technology vulnerable to them, and he is always cautious about that. The thought about how somebody else looked into that makes his skin crawl

“But they are inactive now?” Since he is not in a collective, they should be, he has to make sure so he asks anyway, “They have to be, it’s too dangerous to-” 

“They are” Elnor cuts in, “they are inactive” He is still crouching next to him and Hugh squeezes his eyes closed for a moment. They are inactive. 

“This device,” and Hugh sees the hologram throwing the mask in the air to catch it again with one hand, “gave them a jumpstart, literally the only place where they could work without being shut down was your head. We gave them just enough energy to complete the task, not to recharge. Now it’s off, they are too. No taking over the ship or losing any memories under my watch” That is… comforting

“Thank you”

“You should thank your young friend here, if he hadn’t found you in time, we wouldn’t have this conversation” Oh. How is it with Elnor and timing? And saving his life twice in so many weeks? He looks up to where Elnor is just looking away, maybe made uncomfortable by the statement, and so he says nothing. There is nothing he could say, anyway. How do you thank a person who did that? Is there even a way? The doctor clears his throat next to them, and Hugh squints up to him again. He’d rather look at Elnor, who isn’t standing nearly in direct light.  
“What you need to do is sleep, since, if I may ask, you have slept how much in the last nights?” He tries to calculate before realizing it’s not a real question, but the two people are already too much, and the conversation is even worse. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t… know.   
“Whatever you’re going to say, the answer can’t be better than not enough. If not, this could easily happen again. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, I can just say; don’t do this again. We could have lost you, nearly did, and what we screwed together as a solution was too experimental to try again” I understood that from before already, thank you “You need sleep like everyone else does too. If you can’t, there are ways to help with that” No. Anything, but no. Losing control over his body like that, terrifies him even more. But sleep, he can’t sleep. He dreams too much to sleep, and it only gets worse from there. How can he sleep?   
“I know you are not the biggest fan of my sickbay, and since you need sleep and rest, I can leave you in the care of Elnor here, since he proved himself quite useful in looking after you” Oh. Once again. “but this,” the hologram taps on a small device Hugh didn’t even notice sitting on his wrist, “stays on. To make sure I can keep an eye on you” It’s a black square, he doesn’t even feel it until he moves his wrist. He knows what it is for in an instant, he’s seen it before

“What is that?” 

“I assume it monitors the activity of the nanoparticles in my blood. We had similar ones on the Artifact for … newly reclaimed Borg” He swallows and blinks up to Elnor to answer his question fully, “To make sure… We didn’t miss anything. Without a queen and with no way to find a transmitter they would be … useless. Which could mean that they shut themselves down” He knows Soji made this one, it wasn’t her idea in the beginning, but she perfected it, he read about it when he first looked into her file. 

“This won’t happen” It’s not a question, but the voice it is said in makes it one.

“No, it won’t. I don’t… fancy the idea, but it’s better to make sure I am not…” he just closes his eyes and lets the sentence trail off. He could end it in many ways, but since they are all bad, he doesn’t want to voice it. 

  
Sitting up turns still out to be hard, since everything is already blurred when he was laying down, sitting only makes him dizzy. His limbs feel to heavy, and his head too, and when Elnor puts an arm around him, he gratefully allows himself a moment of weakness and rests his head on his shoulder. 

“I can feel that you want to say something, so please, do. You don’t have to keep quiet with me, you know that” He murmurs. The tension is like an aura around him, even as he now holds Hugh at least partially upright and so he can’t see his face

“I’m sorry for being so loud earlier. I should have thought about it” 

“You are worried, and you have the right to be. I’m the idiot who needs to apologize here, you did nothing wrong” 

“I would not consider you an… idiot.” He says it as if the word is alien to him, something he never said before and only repeats, “But you still have trouble sleeping. Perhaps I could… I have been thinking, that perhaps you would be interested in some of my meditation rituals. They help me focus and clear my head. Maybe it helps you sleep, once you have recovered” Hugh just keeps quiet. It’s a big gesture. There are different forms of meditation romulans use, some more private than others. He got that much from the Artifact and the Romulans there, but he doubts it is what Elnor has in mind, he just doesn’t know how to answer, when he still feels so ashamed.   
“You don’t have to answer now, and you can say no” 

“I…” He stops and shakes his head, “I don’t know, I am… Not sure how well my brain works right now?” His brain, his whole body. Like even his movements must be slow. He felt like this before, when he caught some sort of flu from one of the Romulans on the Artifact, the soreness and how he wanted to sleep for days afterwards. He dragged himself to work anyway, of course. It’s different now, and not only in how Elnor would probably chain him to something if he tried to work despite of it.  
“I’m sorry, I should… I should have told you something was wrong. Or that I couldn’t sleep or…” He doesn’t get to finish, because suddenly he is very sure he’ll fall off the bed when Elnor’s arm leaves him - just to find himself in a tight hug the next. 

“I should have seen it” Elnor’s hands press on his back, there is not an inch between them. A little more sudden and he would have broken his nose, but now Hugh’s chin rests neatly on Elnor’s shoulder, as if it was always supposed to be there. The cloth of his tunic is soft on his skin, he can smell his hair. They touched before, they’ve been close before. The nightmare-hugs, pulling Hugh to his feet on the Artifact, so much touch, there is so much of it involved with Elnor. And still, not like this, because Elnor is more clinging to him now, and Hugh regrets how he can’t hug back as tightly as he wants to, even now his arms already hurt, while nothing in the universe could make him let go. It’s not only shame, yes, he is ashamed and sorry, he feels like the idiot he most likely made of himself again. But he is sorry for the scare he gave everyone, especially Elnor, and he is prepared for the volcanic eruption when it finally comes  
“You were burning, and I couldn’t help. I wanted to help, but there was just nothing I could do, and you were… you were… There was nothing! I thought you would die, and then they brought in your friend and I didn’t even know you had a friend, ” You are going to be fine   
It’s in his head, in his thoughts, like he’s heard it a million times outside of it. It’s something he keeps telling himself, but doesn’t actually believe it, still, it’s there as if it’s a constant he remembers as well as the gravitational constant of the universe

“I’m fine, or… I’m going to be fine” he mutters and turns his head to the side. He doesn’t open his eyes, the moment is already a lot and he doesn’t want to know if they’re being watched. A part of him screams that it doesn’t matter, but he tries to ignore the signals his brain sends him. It would mean concentrating on how tired he is, and how he would love to just stay here like that, how much he wishes that it could be true what is happening. Or what he heard.

“I told you so, over and over, because I couldn’t do anything else and talking helped, me at least, but I wasn’t sure if you heard me” His voice sounds less like he is going to cry now, and for the second in a very short time, Hugh wants to slap himself. He doesn’t know how long he was unconscious, and right now, it’s better than way. He knows Elnor was here the whole time, but thinking about it hurts in a whole different way

“I think so” 

“It was… horrible!”

“I certainly felt that…” His try at humor doesn’t fail as bad as the last time, but he didn’t expect it to really help. What it does however is to loose the tension a little. Hugh regrets when Elnor carefully lets him go anyway   
“And still… do, if I’m perfectly honest” Falling over and just sleeping on the floor sounds not like the worst idea, even if it’s more tiredness of his body. He feels himself waking up more and more, even if he is exhausted to his bones, memories and flickers from before keep coming back, and he isn’t sure if they’ll let him sleep. 

“I am still worried. Can you walk?” 

“Yes, definitely!” ...not, is how his thoughts finish the sentence, but he needs to try. Problem is, that he still just wants to stay how they are now, with his head on Elnors shoulder, because it’s good. He keeps his eyes closed that way and the light can’t reach him so easily. He doesn’t want to get up. And maybe, just maybe, he is getting a bit sleepy. 

“I won’t go away, I promised you to not go away” Elnor’s words dig up a memory, foggy and shaky, and dream-like. Like they sat here before, like this, or similar. It has to do with leaving and the color blue and how he wants to bury his face in Elnor’s tunic and cry, when he finishes with “I’m not leaving” It’s still something he can’t quite believe. That Elnor stays, even after Hugh nearly died on him, after the nightmares that woke him up, he stays. And he lets Hugh stay, and Hugh, well, Hugh is still not even sure what they are yet. They are more than friends - Geordi is a friend, Beverly, Picard now, Soji. The crew of the small ship is what he would call friends. But they are also different than family, since his family died on the Borg cube and he hears them scream every night. They are different. And he doesn’t mind, he just likes to have a word for it. There is more to it now, memories, jumbled and only half making sense. He can’t place them, or not right now, he is too tired to think about why Elnor’s “I am not leaving” is so familiar, and where the continuing want to bury his face in the crook of his neck and hide because of it comes from.  
“And you’re short enough to carry, that’s how I brought you here, it’s not a problem to do so again”   
It’s what snaps Hugh out of his thoughts, only to hide his face on Elnors shoulder for real. Carried. He could have come up with that himself, since he fell asleep in his bed and woke up here, 

“This is embarrassing.” He looks up again when he realizes the full sentence “I am of reasonable height!”

“You are shorter than me” 

“Everyone is shorter than you, Elnor, I am not short!” There is a moment of silence after he says that, broken by actual laughter

“You are tiny. And I like you. I like you very much.” Hugh presses his face into Elnors shoulder again. He would cover himself with anything else, but there are no pillows nearby and the blanket is too comfortable to use. He’s getting laughed at, he nearly died and now he’s getting laughed about. Is this hell? No, it’s not. It’s good, actually  
He stays like that with his face hidden until Elnor seems to have calmed down, before he answers.

“I’m not tiny, but saying that I am an idiot is quite true. There was no need to…” He waves his around to gesture roughly at the room and wants to end with an ‘all this’ when Elnor already finishes his sentence.

“Work yourself to the ground? Not-sleep, not-eat, not-talk?”

“Elnor-” He tries to interrupt him, 

“Pretending that you are fine? Shutting yourself off?”

“Elnor! Please, I know...”

“Sorry.” They are both quiet for a moment.

“But you are right. I just… I didn’t think straight, where I could have. And I could and should have asked and told you and… I didn’t. I guess I’m not used to… people” He lifts his head and squints up to Elnor. The lights are still uncomfortable bright but he feels bad for a different reason now

“People caring about you, you mean.” His voice is more gentle than Hugh deserves, in his opinion at least, but he doesn’t look at him, only at the floor.   
“But people do care, you know? I do, Picard does. Soji, we called them, and they were all worried.” It also answers an unasked question. 

“Can you… Can you…” He stops and looks down again. “I care about you too, but can we…” he doesn’t finish. Can we not talk about it right now? He’s had the problem before, conversations when he is, at least in principle, too tired for it. Late at night or early in the morning, when he rationally knew he should sleep and how he’ll regret it later, but also feels too comfortable, or too passionate about a topic. Now, however, it’s different. He doesn’t enjoy the topic, but it continues on nevertheless. There is so much he wants to say, so many thank yous and apologies, but tired also means emotional, and after everything, it is something he doesn’t want to burden Elnor with further. And he knows he wouldn’t consider it one, but for Hugh it is. He doesn’t want to take where he can’t give back. And right now, there is nothing he could give Elnor back. Nothing he could give him in general

“If you want to ask if I can let the issue rest for now, I can try” Elnor interprets his silence the right way, again, Hugh is thankful for it. It’s thought, he has no way to show it. _Selfish_ he thinks and just nods in response.

* * *

In the end, they walk to their quarters. It’s not far, but Elnor keeps an arm around Hugh anyway, especially walking up the stairs, where he can see how strenuous they are for him. By the time they are upstairs, he can see a fine sheen of sweat glistening on Hugh’s brow, and he moves his hand up to make sure he is not feverish again, and while he still feels a bit warm, it’s human warmth. He knows that the anxiety will stay until Hugh is actually better. He is now, of course, he is better than before, even if it doesn’t feel like it to Elnor. He just needs to rest and when he does that in their quarters, it means that he is more comfortable - and that Elnor can keep a closer eye on him. It’s also more private.   
They make it to their room, just inside before Hugh stumbles, over what Elnor can’t see, but he catches him before he even has a chance to brace himself against the door. 

“You’re okay” he murmurs, it’s not a question, he sees Hugh nod in the half-light of the room anyway. Also how he squeezes his eyes shut, one hand a fist against his leg.  
“Come, sit down here” he helps him over to the bed where he remains upright still, one hand on his head, “You need sleep, but are you hungry? Do you need anything?” He is sure he’ll get a no, but it’s worth a try. 

“Please don’t make me think of food right now?” His voice is weaker than before, but he is coherent and awake, not burning anymore, not dying anymore, and so Elnor just frowns and nods, “But some water or… tea would be great. And I need to shower, and fresh clothes and-” Elnor raises his eyebrows and lets go of him completely once he is sure he is sitting safely on the bed.

“I’ll get you tea and a fresh set of clothes. Showering can wait until you feel better. We can’t jump to warp yet, I was told. And Emil said you’d need the sleep” Now it’s Hugh who frowns

“I don’t know if I can sleep. All of this happened… because I can’t sleep, remember?” It’s the first time he actually admits it, and he sounds defeated while doing so. He had hoped that at least now, he would be tired enough to just fall asleep as soon as he was on the bed, but the contrary seems to be the case. He looks dead on his feet, but his mind is awake again. He is reminded how often Hugh actually woke up through this whole ordeal - confused and scared every single time. It reminds him of their first night here, maybe it was actually the second, when Hugh woke up here and panicked the moment he didn’t know where he was. He still sees it, and he won’t forget how much it made Elnor himself jump. He had only only woken when they brought him here, and he had fallen asleep again after sipping on some tea, then nothing for thirteen hours. He looks worse now, and Elnor looks at the soft but rumpled clothes Hugh is wearing and leans forward to pull the still neatly folded pyjamas from under his pillow, before he makes a quick decision. 

“On Vashti, shortly after we were brought there… I had very little. Mostly just my sleeping clothes, and my father’s jacket. But it helped, somehow” He pulls a set of his own sleeping clothes from the stack and just throws it at Hugh, carefully of course, so it lands in front of him on the bed. He doubts he would be able to catch it, and that he doesn’t answer tells him all he needs to know  
“Try it on” He invites him. The material is different, soft and not silken, warm but not keeping the heat. It’s also at least two sizes too big, but that’s the concept he learned about when he was a child. Like the reason he keeps a wide array of pillows and blankets on the bed, it makes him feel safe, and he is certain Hugh doesn’t know about it, so, in his opinion, he should. There are a lot of things neither of them have experienced, and he isn’t only thinking of a normal childhood, but he caught up on a few of them  
“I’ll stay, if you dream, I’ll wake you up. I’ll stay here, and you won’t be alone. But you need to sleep, and you need to rest so you can feel better, and I am going to make sure you will” He even crosses his arms to underline it, but Hugh isn’t looking at him, just at the pile of clothes in front of him, before he nods. 

* * *

  
Hugh is tired enough that he would accept anything that could help him sleep. If it is just a change of clothes, why not, it’s strange that it’s Elnor’s, but since he really seemed sure about it, there is no reason to doubt it.   
And it works wonders, even though Elnor’s clothes definitely are too big for him. He neatly folds the sleeves of arms and legs up, but the effect is only minimal. The sensation is different, but not uncomfortable so, he could probably fit his whole body inside the shirt. It’s more like he is wearing a blanket than actual clothes, and for the first time he realizes that it must be even too big for Elnor. Or maybe it’s just that Elnor is really tall. 

“I don’t understand how this is supposed to help me sleep” He admits and carefully fixes the sleeve when it rolls down again. It’s impractical

“I thought it maybe helps you feel safe” Safe, Elnor, the person, the whole concept of him feels safe, so maybe his clothes help him? It’s actually not a bad idea if he thinks about it.   
Elnor sits down on the bed next to him, and Hugh doesn’t dare to actually look him in the eye, which is the only reason he sees it. It should have been visible to him before, he should have seen it, and it sends a spike of adrenaline through his body, enough to shout his sluggish thoughts back into place, before they tumble around again. There are smears of green on Elnor’s collarbone, and drops that just look darker on his blue tunic, going to his hands, or not his hands, but sleeves. He can’t resist the reflex to touch it. Shaking fingers trailing along from his chest to his hands, only touching his tunic he doesn’t even really feel the softness of, while the dark spots are hard and rough.  
It’s blood, dried blood.   
And it looks… familiar, of some sort. He’s seen romulan blood before, the Artifact had maybe been a cruelty-free place for the most time, but not an especially safe one. And now there is blood on Elnor’s clothes, that hadn’t been there when he last remembers looking at him. Or did he miss it? There is no other Romulan here, there is also no reason for him to have blood on his clothes when he didn’t leave the ship, and it’s too much and in the wrong spot for a papercut.

“What happened?” He is already scared of the answer. The big gaps in his memory let the anxiety spike upwards, and he can imagine a million bad scenarios of what could have happened, from him fighting Elnor because what if he saw Narissa instead to how they maybe just didn’t tell him that the Nanos took over his body for some time.  
That Elnor doesn’t say a word and only looks away just makes it worse.   
“Elnor, did-” He swallows and it clicks in his throat because breathing is harder than it should be, and his throat is tighter than he should be, and his eyes sting, because if nothing else already did it, if everything else by some miracle didn’t make Elnor see who he really is and how much he doesn’t deserve him, this definitely does. Elnor doesn’t need to answer him, because even if he doesn’t remember, it doesn’t change that he hurt Elnor, who stayed with him the whole time and who endured his dreams and-

“Breathe, Hugh, it’s okay. I’m okay, it was nothing, it wasn’t even your fault” Not his fault?! How was it not his fault? How could hurting him, making him bleed not be his fault?!

“I-” he stops when his voice shakes so hard he can’t find his voice, “I hurt you- I did that, how could- Oh god I am so sorry, I don’t even remember-” He tries to, and the images flood his mind too fast - the EMH and Elnor, Soji, but every single time Elnor, in every moment. And he hurt him. The first person who stayed and of course he did something stupid like that, how-

“Because you are not to blame, look at me!” Elnor’s hand is on the back of his neck, making him look at him, just his face.  
“It’s not your fault. You had a seizure and I got too close when you lashed out. My nose wasn’t even broken, it was fixed in under a minute. You were not, and that’s more important to me. _You_ are more important to me” Important. 

“How?” His chest still feels too tight and he can’t get enough air in it, but the question has to be asked, he needs to know, it’s stupid and foolish, but there must be a reason, “I only… I made you worry, and I hurt you, I can’t give anything back for the two times you saved my life now, I don’t-”

“It’s not your decision who I decide to care about” His voice is gentle and his free hand comes to rest on Hugh’s arm. It’s not a hug, it’s nothing, but it feels like so much, “You are important, even if you act like every problem in the universe is your fault, and every broken person yours to fix. Even if you value your own life so little you would rather die from exhaustion than to possibly disturb Soji. Even if you are so scared of losing people that you rather shut yourself off than letting them come close to you. You are special for a multitude of reasons, and the only one who fails to see it. But it’s too late, as long as I know you don’t want me to leave, I won’t leave” He sounds like a stubborn child but Hugh is shaking at his words, unable to answer, especially when he continues, “And I will tell you that a million times over if you need it” It’s so similar, it sounds so similar like- _You are not a lost cause, and even if you think you are, even if you would be, I am here. And I will make sure you are not. I can find you, if you are lost. I can do it again._

“I can’t have you… I don’t deserve-” He gets cut off again

“Don’t. Because if you say you don’t deserve it, then you’d have to tell me why I don’t deserve you, what I have done to not deserve you, and you can’t” It’s too much, and Hugh can’t even find his voice now. He just stares, looks at Elnor and he can’t look away, he concentrates so much on not-crying that he can’t look away, and as much as he tries to concentrate, it doesn’t work. Traitorous tears still escape his eyes, they still come and feel warm against his cheek. The knowledge that he won’t be able to stop himself from breaking apart only makes it worse, he isn’t one to self-pity, never had been, even when he could have. He would rather cauterize his tear-ducts if tears weren’t so important for showing feelings. He doesn’t want to now, and it’s pathetic, only to Elnor it is not. And Elnor is still sitting in front of him, he still has one hand on his arm - just that moves closer, lets go and Hugh just lets him. He shouldn't, he shouldn’t let him in, but Elnor didn’t ask, he invited himself in. And found something Hugh never thought possible, and he lets him.   
And he lets himself break. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rollercoaster? Yeah. But hey, hugs!


	6. Just like broken glass to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugh is sleepy. There are cuddles. Soji has feelings too. Geordi exists. I have feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg. Last chapter. It's long, there is plot. I'm uploading now since I won't stop editing if I don't. It's mostly snippets, partly because I need to fill some time, but mostly because I need the fluff. And it is just Fluff, it's literally nothing else than Fluff I am so sorry. It's Fluff and Hugh is sleepy (maybe because I am sleep deprived). There are also two reasons you had to wait so long for this. Three, really. First is how Uni started again and is trying to kill me more than Narissa Hugh, second because I don't want the story (game, haha) to end. Third.... *hides* because... I am halfway finished with the next part of this series already. Yes. I'm horrible. There will be four more, mostly short ones (hmhmmm... this one was planned as a OS, look what happenend, laugh about me PLEASE), but I am too in love with this fandom and the amazing people in it to stop. This is also the place to thank all of you who commented and left kudos on this fic, a special thanks to the HughCrew and especially two of you, because of all the support. Thank you to the people I got to meet through this fandom. Thank every single one of you for reading, it means the world to me. Yeah. Emotions, ew, I'll shut up now. Have fun?

Elnor isn’t sure how long it takes until Hugh falls asleep. It’s longer than he would like, but shorter than it could have been. It was bound to happen, and he didn’t even realize until he said something and received no answer. He didn’t get to say a lot before, because like a dike breaking, for once it was Hugh who couldn’t seem to stop talking. In many words always the same. 

_I see them every single night, I hear them scream in my head, I see them when I close my eyes and I hear_ her _telling me it’s my fault, over and over again_

It’s not like Elnor didn’t already know. He knows Hugh puts the blame onto himself and he knows it’s hard to get out of it. Being told it’s not his fault, knowing it’s not his fault - it might be alright in the daytime, but at night, the thoughts tend to crash back. No reason can make them go away. It’s always at the times without a chance to help it when they come, and they stick because there is no way he could have changed the outcome, or change it now. He suspects that it is also this knowledge that kept him awake for so long it made him sick like this. Right now, however, he seems peaceful. Elnor can see most of his face, his hair has fallen in it and over his left eye, but he looks relaxed. Still tired, even in his sleep, when he carefully shifts to hold him in his arm. They are pressed together in a hug that held Hugh upright when he was shaking too much to talk, now, it’s still, even after they changed position so Elnor could look at him, repeat what he said before. That it wasn’t his fault, how he is safe. He is not lying, not pretending everything is fine. It’s not fine. And it will take time until it is near _fine_ \- it may never be. But for the first time, when he told him that he wouldn’t leave, he felt like Hugh actually believed him. It’s a question of trust, and Hugh trusts him enough to at least show him a part of the baggage he carries around. Enough to fall asleep being held, and while Elnor never really held anyone, he is certain that Hugh, for his part, was never held. Now Elnor just holds him. They can’t stay like this, and as much as he doesn’t want to admit it - he is tired too. The whole day was difficult (to put it lightly), and he can’t say that he got a lot of rest in the nights before. Hugh can’t just stay like this either, he is still half sitting in their hug, one hand gripping on Elnor’s tunic, and even while he is sleeping it stays there. It limits Elnor’s range of movements, of course, he can’t just get up and move him like this. Not without risking to wake him up. He carefully shifts and pulls his legs up on the bed, at least he mainly has to lower them both down. He has to make sure to move Hugh as little as possible, and he carefully holds him a little tighter when he lays back on the pillows, carefully holding one hand at the back oh Hugh’s head, so he stays like he is with his head on Elnor’s chest. He slowly lets go when-

“Hm?” Hugh’s eyes sluggishly open halfway. He blinks up to Elnor but doesn’t make any attempt to actually move away, he just sighs and turns his head to the other side, “...miss?”

“It’s alright, I’m still here” He reassures him and carefully puts his arm around his back again. He holds his breath, because he doesn’t know what to do when it doesn’t work, if he wakes up now and stays awake, he just fell asleep and he needs to rest. But Hugh only nods and shifts so his head is half under Elnor’s arm, just enough so he can still breathe. It almost seems like he is hiding, and even if he is… Elnor smiles a little and resists the urge to press a kiss to his head. They are not on that level, and they haven’t talked about anything yet. He shouldn’t give in to what he wants to do. He may never be allowed to. 

“Oh… That’s good then” Hugh mumbles, muffled by the cloth of Elnor’s tunic, asleep a moment later. He waits until his breathing has really evened out, then carefully reaches for the blankets with his free arm. It takes maneuvering, but he manages to pull them up over the two of them. They are comfortably close. Since Hugh is actually sleeping, he is too. Arguably, he was exhausted and crying and talking took even more out of him, but he wouldn’t allow himself to relax if he wasn’t comfortable. Elnor turns to his side so he can put his arm around him without the limb falling asleep, but he can’t sleep yet himself. He is tired, laying down makes him feel how exhausted he is himself. But the questions are vivid in his mind, while one sticks out. He should ask when Hugh is awake again, he should ask it, no matter how much he dreads the answer. 

_How much do you remember_

Because how much is it? Did he hear anything? Or everything even? Worst of all, he isn’t sure what would be better. Hugh remembering that he told him he loves him, or not. Because on the one hand, he said it, it’s out, and they need to talk about it anyway, but on the other hand - it’s out. He’s said it. And if Hugh remembers, then he remembers the moment too, the desperation Elnor felt when saying it, and he knows him. He got to know him well enough. Hugh wouldn’t say anything, if he heard, to spare them an embarrassing moment. With everything else, it’s fine. He would tell him again and again, but telling him how much he means to him in a moment like this? It hadn’t been the best choice.

He looks next to him where Hugh lays still and asleep, one hand still gripping loosely at Elnor’s tunic, he knows the spot on his chest would feel cool if he moved it now. He should get up and change, he should have done that when he went here to get the pillows, he should have done it right after the incident, instead of just washing his hands. To make sure nobody ever found out about it, least of all Hugh. But he can’t get up now, not really, it would mean slipping off the bed and away from Hugh, who he suspects to wake up if he is moved now. Maybe it can wait until the morning? Or, what can pass as morning, since he’s lost track of time somehow. Sleeping in his clothes is not what he prefers, especially not these. Before all of this, when most of the crew left for the planet, he was meant for backup. And ready he was, to jump down as soon as he was called there. He couldn’t have known that the emergency he was called to in the end would be on the ship, not down the planet, and so he had been prepared for a possible fight. He put the leather straps protecting his arms and hands away, the band out of his hair, so there is no pressure from that, still it feels wrong. Then he looks down to the Ex-Borg that is currently pressed against him, only a mess of brownish-black hair and too long sleeves visible with the blanket. There is no decision to be made actually, he realizes, there is no question. He will stay here, like this. 

Elnor carefully pulls another blanket close so they won’t steal them from each other later, but leaves the light on low, in case they’ll need it.

“Sleep well” He mumbles and closes his eyes. Maybe he should stay awake a bit longer? Just to make sure… Sure… 

He doesn’t even get to finish the thought before he is asleep.

* * *

There is a cocoon around him. He doesn’t know why. Or how. But it feels nice, he has to admit, as strange as it is that he is inside one, he feels safe. Warm and safe. It makes him wonder why he even woke up, when there is no obvious reason to do so. But he is awake, partially, caught in the state between sleep and awareness, slowly easing into being awake, into realizing where he is. That the blankets are his cocoon, and that the room is not completely dark. He feels the pressure from arms around him, and maybe that is not right. Maybe that is too much. And maybe he should wake up. He doesn’t want to, though, he wants to stay in this state of not-really awareness. It’s safe, he hasn’t felt that safe in a long time. Maybe never before. Safety is an illusion, he told himself countless times, it comes back to his mind but for the first time, he ignores it. Someone is breathing into his hair, a sensation entirely new. But not bad. He sighs and burrows deeper into his cocoon, thinking of the butterflies he read about and still has never seen. They are blue, when he thinks of them. Dark blue, fluttering everywhere like his thoughts sometimes. Around his head. On a planet that has grass and nature, trees and maybe even a bird. A planet with sunsets and sunrises and clouds, rain, weather. Wind. Wind is nice. He thinks of wind when he drifts off to sleep again.

* * *

“It’s only for a few minutes, I worked hard on these calculations, I need to make sure I didn’t miss anything in the end!”

“You are supposed to be resting, Emil said three days, and only one is over”

“I’m not a child, I can decide for myself if I feel up to math or not”

“Then I think you should stop behaving like one and listen to what the doctor said. And he said you shouldn’t be reading or let alone work”

“Just give it back, Elnor,” He reaches for the PADD again, but Elnor has already pulled it out of his reach. It’s mean, he is too fast and while Hugh feels a lot better now, his movements are still calculated careful, he gets dizzy when he stands up, and mostly slept through the last 24 hours. Now, however, they are back to him not-sleeping, and while he is far too sure Elnor is partly enjoying how Hugh is bored and won’t admit it, he does that far too much. He tries to let him, partly because he still feels bad about lying, but to a growing part because he wants to. Elnor worries over him, and Hugh… He isn’t used to it. And he doesn’t want him to be worried. But in a strange way, and maybe it’s not as strange as it’s unfamiliar, it’s more. He cares, for once. He doesn’t mind. Most importantly, and it took too long for this to occur to him, Hugh feels less like a burden around him. He doesn’t have to protect Elnor, he doesn’t have to keep him safe. He doesn’t have to be a leader around him. On the contrary, it’s Elnor who keeps Hugh safe. He’s been responsible for so long that he forgot that he isn’t for everyone. And that is what makes it so easy to be around Elnor, they are not responsible for each other, and while Elnor acts like he is for Hugh, he isn’t forced to. Hugh chose to be protect the xBs, but it wasn’t completely a choice made by him. It was also circumstance choosing him, since there had only been the option of having one of the Romulans take the place as Director. He had to be who they needed him to be. The pressure from that made it hard sometimes, it hadn’t been an exaggeration when he told Picard how they served a Romulan queen now. In the same way the queen had controlled the Borg, the Romulans controlled the xBs, with resources, medical equipment and personnel nobody else would grant them. The same Romulans who then… Romulans. Tal Shiar. Zhat Vash. He sometimes looks at Elnor and asks himself how he manages to view him so differently from them. He is a Romulan, but none of them, and he never sees them as one of them. It’s the same with humans, there are people like Geordi, and people like Picard, and different people, who prevented the Artifact project from having real ties to and rights in the Federation. No, Elnor is the best person he’s met in a long time. Only that right now, he knows he won’t let him work, and he can’t really be mad about that.

“Please?”

“He said no reading, no strenuous activities” 

“I know, I was there” He had once gotten knocked out on the Artifact, a falling piece of debris very soon after they started working there. The repairs had been slow from the beginning, but securing pieces that threatened to fall was normally the first bullet point on a list of safety rules (and yes, he suspected that maybe someone wanted to replace him, but there hadn’t been evidence), after the accident, it was. When he woke up in their improvised sickbay two hours later, he had gotten the same list of rules Emil gave him here. It almost seems like malfunctioning implants have the same effect like a concussion - who would have thought that? He stopped trying to reach for the PADD when he remembered, and only now realizes that he must have stared at the opposite wall for a few seconds now, because Elnor looks at him with his worried-face again

“What is wrong?” He frowns

“Nothing, I just… got a little lost in thoughts, I’m sorry. Maybe you are right, I am… not quite myself yet” He tries to smile, anything to make him look less worried, but it’s too late. 

“Thoughts?” Suddenly he is cross-legged in front of him, the PADD nowhere to be seen, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about what you remember from sickbay. This kind of thoughts?” Are they? Partly, they are about Elnor, but he isn’t going to tell him

“No… And yes, I don’t remember much, to answer your question. It’s mostly… Hazy, like a dream. Like I know we talked, but I am not sure what is real. I know you were there, and … Emil, but some of it feels more like a hallucination. It’s all very chaotic, so I am not sure how much it actually is”

“Anything… special?” Special. Special like that Elnor stayed? Special like the way Elnor held his hand the whole time and talked to him, even if he can’t remember all of it? Special like… Special like how he told him- Special how he told him he loved him. But he won’t say it, he realizes the same moment he remembers. It’s wrong. Elnor probably didn’t mean it, and even if he did, it would be unfair to hold him to it. He was scared, worried, Hugh probably frightened him with everything that happened. He can’t say it. It doesn’t count. The situation doesn’t, and he won’t hold him to it. Also, it’s too special. If it was a dream, he wants to keep it.

“Everything was a bit… special. There is nothing specific if you mean it like that. I am just…” he looks away and back to Elnor, he can do the next best thing, “very grateful you were there”

Elnor looks like he just released a breath he was holding and nods. No. He wouldn’t hold Elnor to any promise he may have made, he wouldn’t hold him to anything that could have been a foolish dream. He wouldn’t.

* * *

“No… They didn’t do anything, please leave them alone, please…” Elnor hears the quiet pleading almost before he is really awake. Now he is. This time, it’s not movement that woke him up, just the words, and he briefly wonders if it was them or if he just evolved a sense for nightmares now.

“Hugh?” He clears his throat and shifts closer, but stays lying down, just leans on his elbow. They are face to face, but Hugh’s is scrunched up as if pain again, he has one of his hands pressed to his head, the blanket lost somewhere,

“Shhh… Hugh, you’re dreaming” He tries softly, shaking his shoulder now. At the sound of his voice Hugh whimpers and his free hand grips into the mattress, as if he is searching for something. Elnor carefully pries it free and puts his own over it.  
  


“No, please-” 

“I’ve got you. It’s okay, you’re safe. Nobody is going to get hurt” He squeezes his hand, and suddenly, with a gasp, Hugh’s eyes snap open.

“Elnor?” He sounds like he’s just cried, rough and high-pitched, while he is still not more then whispering, 

“I’m here, you’re alright. It was a dream” Except it happened, they both know it, but it’s the wrong time to just talk it through again. Elnor would, but he hopes that Hugh is just still sleepy enough to fall asleep again. He pulls the blanket up and shifts closer, they remain face to face, and in the dim light he sees Hugh’s eyes, wet but awake, it’s not panic tonight, but grief. 

“I’m here” he repeats and tries to wrap his arms around him, if Hugh needs distance, if he wants to talk, he will resist, but now he just shifts closer and breathes shakily against Elnor’s chest. Silently, however, Elnor feels where his tears leave a wet spot, and doesn’t say anything himself. 

It’s only when he wakes up hours later that he realizes that they must have both fallen back asleep like that soon after. They are still in the same position, so close to each other. The tears have dried, and Hugh is sleeping, probably the most he has for one night in weeks. Without gel, his hair is just a soft and fluffy mess, he’s seen it before, but usually they are not that close at night. It’s happened before, and they usually wake up closer to one another than they fell asleep. Nobody says anything about it, and like now, they just don’t discuss it. For Elnor at least, there is no reason to do so, and he suspects it would just complicate everything, where it is for once beautifully uncomplicated now.

He regrets that he has to get up. He doesn’t want to, and he is sure that Hugh doesn’t want it either, but he is sleeping and none of them actually have a say in the matter. The others are going to have a team meeting soon, but since Emil made it clear to Elnor that Hugh is to be kept from any form of excitement for at least a day more, he didn’t tell him. He also didn’t lie, even if withholding the information doesn’t sit right with him. 

“What are you doing?” His voice is sleepy and he doesn’t even open his eyes while talking, as if he doesn’t really expect an answer. 

“Go back to sleep, I’ll be back soon” He untangles himself from the blankets, but stops when Hugh is sluggishly tugging at his hand. He seems more awake now, blinking up at him with a frown

“That doesn’t answer my question…” He can’t tell him. If he would, there is nothing that would make him stay in their room, he wouldn’t just insist on coming, he would do so. There is no way he’d stay put. He seems so much better than before, he’s slept at night and even yesterday, he let Elnor calm him down last night. It’s progress. And still, Elnor sees him him lying in sickbay. Hallucinating. Talking deliriously. Crying on one occasion when he was even to weak to speak in the end. He feels him burn under his fingers. He hears him asking Elnor to please not leave. Emul told him to make sure he rests and nothing could make him break the promise he had made to all three of them in that moment. Maybe he is too protective, too worried. It’s just a meeting, it’s just a discussion, but Hugh gets tired out with their normal conversation already, how is he supposed to stay alert then? And it’s not like he would admit it, he may be able to do so with Elnor now, but definitely not with all of the crew present. No, he won’t tell him. He doesn’t have to lie to do so. 

“I’ll tell you about it later” He pulls the blanket over his shoulders, “now is not the time”

“Hmhmmm…” His bleary eyes follow Elnor around the room as he gets his clothes and he looks into them before he closes the door to the bathroom. No. He isn’t going to tell him.

* * *

Hugh watches Elnor search around the room until his eyes fall closed again, but he is still awake when he leaves. There is not much to it, his spot on the bed is still warm when he rolls over and just snuggles deeper into the blankets, falling back asleep.

The chime of the door some time later doesn’t wake him, he is only half asleep, too comfortable to actually wake up, but too rested to be asleep. Still, it takes him a moment to realize that it’s the door, and he sits up looking around. This is ridiculous, if he is supposed to stay here, why does it seem like everyone just wants to talk to him?! He is not annoyed, just confused. But it’s Soji who enters, and he rubs the sleep from his eyes and sits up properly, cross legged and the blanket only over his feet, trying to look a little less disheveled. He can’t do much for his hair, it’s already standing in all directions, and he is wearing Elnor’s clothes again, but he doesn’t want her to think she woke him up. He still likes her, he still considers her a friend, and that means that she should not feel bad because of him. He doesn’t know how much time had passed since he fell asleep, but it can’t be too much, since Elnor is not back yet. Soji sits down on the edge of the bed and holds a Padd out to him, without saying anything, and he takes it. It’s his research on how to make the ship able to withstand their way through the Borg-tunnel with as least damage as possible, since they were hidden from the romulans now, but wouldn’t be for long. There was no way to maintain their cover after making the jump, so they had to be in the best possible shape to at least defend themselves. 

“I’ve been taking over your calculations. With the new parts we acquired, we can lessen the amount of time in the equation. I found a possible jumping point, but it’ll take us nearly two days to get there. And one more if he use the course that lets us stay hidden” Her calculations are spot on, and the question marks are set randomly across the data, lines that are completely clear. She doesn’t need him to look over the calculations. She informs him with that too, yes, but that’s not the reason she is here, and it’s obvious even more now. She holds herself up too stiff and looks away, doesn’t meet his eye. It’s an excuse to be here. He gives her back the Padd and goes with the situation, even if he isn’t sure if he shouldn’t ask her. Not-asking seems the polite way though, the kind way. She wants to get to her people. Back to her people even if she doesn’t completely remember. She yearns for it, and he understands her too well.

“I would take a day more to test it, yes, but _can_ you wait for a day more?” He asks her with a sad smile. 

“I know the feeling. Even though I know Seven of Nine is on the cube, she is with them, I can’t really … not want to be there too” The two of them have too much in common. Since Sojis memories are mostly not real, she is programmed and changed, she has a hard time trusting others. They both have only a painted picture of a vision what family is, while the feeling is new - Sojis was a lie, except for her sister, who she found out died without her knowledge, and Hugh saw his die in front of his eyes. They both lost a lot on that cube, and by no doubt Soji doesn’t want to get back to the Artifact. Hugh himself has a hard time calling it the Artifact now. It is still the only home he ever had, the only people he ever had. Soji wants to get back to the only people she ever had - and still has. Memories are tricky for any brain, organic or synthetic, and so he trusts her even if hers are jumbled in places. It’s not her fault, and he would do anything to get back to his family, his people. The realisation that they are safer with Seven, if there even is anyone left, made him uneasy at first, but it would have been foolish to deny it. He is here, away from them, helping Soji. Making sure, after he lost his family to the Tal Shiar, that she wouldn’t too. She looks away 

“I’m sorry for… what happened on the Artifact.” She says suddenly and for the first time since they are both on the ship, looks him in the eye. 

“I don’t know why I was sent there but… the romulans were there for me. Narek was. You helped Picard and me escape, and I am very thankful for it. I just wish… the consequences had been different” He needs a moment to find an answer. The memories are vivid in his mind, and he has asked himself the same question she implies here. 

“I don’t regret helping you.” He says softly. “I knew there was something about you, and when Narek appeared, I began to be worried” perhaps he should have been more concerned, “But it’s not your fault. And… I would do it again. It was the right thing to do” Nothing could change that, “However,” he adds hurriedly when he sees her expression, “that doesn’t deny the bad consequences” He looks down to his feet, warm under the covers, and asks himself why he keeps having deep conversations here, first with Elnor, now Soji, “It’s just that being scared of the consequences is no excuse to stay down, to not do anything. That doesn’t make us much better than the actual villains” It’s the truth, but it doesn’t help how awkward he feels saying it. It feels too big a sentence to say on this tiny ship, they should have had this conversation much, much sooner. Since they didn’t have it then, they have it now, and the tension with it. 

“I am … grateful” She says after a silent minute “Thank you, also for… You didn’t have to cut me out. But I know what you were trying to do, so… thank you for that” He doesn’t know what to answer, they have a moment of uneasy silence between them. Even after reading about it, conversation is not always easy, and right now, with their topic, it’s even worse. It feels heavy, but they both don’t have the words to answer it. The only upside is how they are both feeling it - which makes it a little less awkward when she breaks the silence at also a part off the tension with a

“How are you feeling?” He breathes a little easier. That is a question he can answer

“Not as tired as before, luckily. And a lot better, I think my biggest enemy is boredom and…” _the… thoughts that come with it_ he thinks, but won’t tell her, “Elnor is not really letting me do anything” 

“He loves you, you know” Every drop of blood shoots into his cheeks at her words, and he hurriedly looks down where his hands clutch the blanket over his feet again

“I-” He swallows and takes a breath, it doesn’t help, “I know” He doesn’t want to tell her that either, but playing dumb is not an option, so he admits it and stares holes in the pattern of the bedsheets

“Does he know you love him too?” His head snaps up so fast it makes him dizzy and sends a spike of pain through his neck, all ignored instantly. How does she know? There is no way he told her, no way she could know, no way she could have seen it, just no way for her to know!

“I don’t know what-” he swallows it down, her expression tells him everything again. There is no point in denying it, “How did you find out?”

“It’s the way you look at him. You look at each other - how you talk. You are both so stubborn, and still, the only one who made you leave your workshop was Elnor. I was there before, you know? You didn’t even see me” It’s news to him - he hadn’t seen her, and maybe, that is more concerning than their topic, just not right now

“Elnor stayed with you in sickbay, the whole time, and there is a reason we let him do that. We couldn’t give you anything else against the pain without risking permanent damage, so we couldn’t make sure you were asleep the whole time, but he did, and you let him. I don’t know, maybe I am judging the whole situation wrong, and I am not the right … person to talk to about feelings. But it’s not only me, and…” she looks away and back to him, but her smile is almost sad, “I want you to be happy. Everything is going to be weird, and strange, and possibly dangerous. We are haunting a conspiracy and are hunted by Romulans, one of them my Ex-boyfriend, because I found out about two weeks ago, that my whole life was a lie and I am not even a human. That my sister, my only family, died. I just… I just want you to be happy. You almost died because of _me,_ and what happened on the Artifact wasn’t my fault, but it still happened _because of me._ The least I can do is… use the nothingness that is all I ever thought I was and hope I can pay you back for all you did for me, without even knowing what I was” Her voice shakes in the last part, and now she doesn’t look him in the eye, but Hugh doesn’t know if that is bad. He knows what happened, it’s the main reason he tried to leave her alone as much as possible, even it it turned out to be not necessary. 

“Not… what. Who” He corrects it almost automatically, because it’s the only thing he can say, “Of all people… What makes us a person is not… machinery or the absence of it. You are as much a person, a who, an individual, as I am. And Picard, and Elnor. Everyone else” It’s as much a distraction as how he lets the last part distract himself. What is he supposed to say? What can he answer? 

“So what will you do?” 

“I can’t just… I don’t know. I don’t know what I will do”  
  
“Whatever it is - don’t wait too long. And maybe ask someone else for their opinion too” She holds out the second Padd to him and smiles, really this time. The smile he remembers from the Artifact, when he sometimes watched her on the footage, “One of your friends was very worried, and I thought you maybe want to tell him that you’re better. Since… Nobody here lets you get back to work anyway. Or out of bed much”

“What do you mean?” He feels like he’s treated like a child again, but lets it happen. He is supposed to, he knows, and maybe it’s not as bad as he makes it out to be. They are just worried, and the best he can do is take their advice, since he proved himself to be not the best at taking care of himself. That he mostly sleeps is maybe a bit too far stretched, but it’s helping, and when he is awake, he’s rarely alone. Elnor is always here, it’s the first time he is actually not, and Soji is here instead. And whoever he is supposed to talk to. There are only few possibilities, and he has to admit that he didn’t really think about them until now. He didn’t dare to ask if it was just a dream that he heard Geordi, that it really was him is like a dream in a bubble, he doesn’t want to destroy it. That Elnor asked about him is a good hint, and still, he doesn’t allow himself to think about it. He shouldn’t get his hopes up - not now, not ever. Not with anyone else who isn’t straight up crazy.

“Just… Say hello, okay?” Hello? He looks after her when she leaves, and with each step away, his heart begins to beat faster. His hopes rise before he can really stop them from doing so - and he types a >Hello?< with shaking fingers. It appears white on a black screen, with his name over the message, for some reason it means a lot, just this message, with his heart beating against his ribs, what did Elnor say about excitement? He should be calm, but he already knows, deep down. For a moment, nothing happens, and he closes his eyes, takes a breath and wants to put the PADD aside - by all means, it’s foolish to think he gets an answer immediately. He doesn’t know the time, but with his luck, it’s the middle of the night on earth. And so he nearly jumps when he gets an answer - a new window, under his, with a different name on top.

>How is your head? I heard you had a little trouble with your implants< He swallows and stares at it, not at the message, the name, and the screen when it comes to life a moment later, and a face appears, small because the screen is so, and in bad quality and still, it makes his heard jump and his face burn and his limbs prickle. He can’t hug a screen, he can’t just grab through it as much as he wants to. They are too far apart for a good video, it’s a risk because they have to stay hidden and the signal could- Just that he can’t care as much as he should. Because it’s Geordi who is smiling at him. For the first time in years, after they communicated only in texts and even that stopped over a month ago.

“Are you finding trouble or is it finding you?” He shakes his head, “I got worried when you stopped replying a few weeks back, and then I get a message you nearly died and are now on the best way to again. I don’t know what your plan is, but I really want to hear it!” 

* * *

It’s two hours later when Elnor returns. He didn’t mean to stay away for so long, but since he was asked by Soji to do so, and she said Hugh was fine, he made the best of it, in training and meditating. The last time he stayed away for too long didn’t end well, though, and so he gives in to the anxious feeling way quicker than the last time. And it’s as dim as when he left when he enters now, carefully. 

“Hugh?” He asks quietly and comes over to the bed, it’s the same picture from two days before and he swallows down how it makes him feel. How it puts cold hands over his chest and how he feels the little hairs on his neck stand up. It’t not the same. Hugh had been fine, he even went to finally get his shower and was fine afterwards, just tired. What if he’s missed something again? What if he is ill again? What if- He closes his eyes and takes a breath, it’s just panic. If something is wrong, he will know and get Hugh to sickbay, like before. But he seems to be asleep, fallen over, not-burning when Elnor pulls the blankets up and carefully removes the PADD from where he still holds it with one hand. He looks peaceful. Relaxed. No burn marks on his forehead, just his normal warmth when he can’t resist to let his fingers push away a strand of hair, just to feel his skin. He doesn’t react to it, but it’s just sleep.

“So, you are Elnor then?” He spins around and ducks faster than training could teach - the voice is familiar, but it’s too close, how did someone get in here?! 

“I’m just on video man, I can see your face right now and you’re looking the wrong way” He lowers his gaze to the PADD in his hand, and the face looking back at him, while he could have sworn that the screen had been blank a moment before. But there he is - a man, brown eyes and smiling. He has a… nice smile. He recognizes him from before, from the video in sickbay, still, he stays careful.  
  
“I suppose you are Geordi then?” He mimics his tone, careful, gives him the benefit of a doubt since Hugh really seems to care about him, but can’t completely bring himself to not be suspicious.

“We haven’t been introduced yet, but yes, that’s me. I wasn’t sure if it was a great idea to just leave before you were back, and I am also a bit curious to meet you. So I stayed on when Hugh fell asleep, just to be on the safe side and stuff, you know?” 

“Yes… Thank you. I didn’t want to leave him alone, I would have been back sooner if I’d known” He takes the PADD out of the room. Staying in it would risk waking Hugh with their talking, and he really is curious about this friend of him. Who now shrugs and leans back. He has his sleeves shoved up to his elbows, but Elnor can’t really see where he is. Just his hands, he moves them a lot. Not as subtly as Hugh does, however.

“It’s alright, he’s just sleeping” 

“Yes, but I don’t know you” He sits down on the floor next to the door, just outside, the door closed. He doesn’t want to stay here for too long, just a few minutes to get to know this Geordi, “Which means I also don’t know if I trust you” 

“Absolute Candor, I heard of that. So, Hugh’s friend, let me tell you a story…”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I said 'thank you for reading I love you' yet? No? THANK YOU FOR READING I LOVE YOU

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on tumblr and/or fill my inbox with prompts at @strangestarlightmusic


End file.
